The premise is that through understanding these mechanisms, planners and designers can develop more humanistically meaningful urban realms. The course begins by analyzing the city as a physical artifact. This is followed by a study of open spaces and buildings as typological elements which give spatial form to the urban place. Design is the artful composition of these elements to create meaningful visual and spatial order through the use of form, hierarchy and geometry. Cities are built environments experienced and used by people as individuals and groups.
Individuals experience the city through sensory perception, motion and memory.
People use cities as functional entities for living, working, learning, recreating and socializing. The urban realm provides activity settings and social settings beyond the scale of individual buildings, collective settings for the conduct of life. Successful city design occurs when physical forms and humanistic needs coalesce, when the physical artifact creates positive human responses, when the setting enables life to prosper. This has occurred in some superb European cities such as Rome, Paris, Berlin, London, and Copenhagen and some notable American cities such as Philadelphia, Boston, Washington, San Francisco and New Orleans. Their will be weekly debates, discussions and class exercises.