Urban structure – week 10 at Waterloo

Planners are to aid and facilitate growth and development, according to policies and theories and architectural alternatives (and not to mention economic capabilities). There are ideas to be heard, egos to be addressed, money to be made, politicians, developers, public opinions, professionals and experts and whatever else is out there!
There is also an environment to [...]

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Cities of diversity for people, but the capitalist rationale sticks deep in week 9

This week (week 9) we discussed urban social diversity and its challenge to planning, and we looked into some historic champions related to this debate. We also performed a couple of class presentations, based on presenting real-world planning cases, that illustrated how difficult it is to stand up to capitalist interests that don’t sympathize with [...]

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Week 8: The Suburbs and Legally Speaking

The suburbs
Between a gentrified inner city and an expanding outer suburban development, there is the inner suburb (where in many cities the low-income households are mostly found). A ton of issues; access to jobs, services (particularly transportation) and an issue of city identity, lacking vibrant commercial activity and natural areas and new-style houses. Do you [...]

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Seven times seven days of study – the journey continues

The closer we get to the present, the closer reality is about to hit us; we embrace for the clash and keep wandering backwards into the future…
Week 7

Le Corbusier (1887-1965) introduces ‘towers in the park’  with the benefits of greenspace, sunlight and high density. The whole world experiments with his concepts. The impact of [...]

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