17904 Urban Design Fundamentals

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Subject handbook information prior to 2025 is available in the Archives.

UTS: Design, Architecture and Building: School of the Built Environment
Credit points: 6 cp
Result type: Grade and marks

There are course requisites for this subject. See access conditions.

Description

This subject provides an understanding of the principles and practices of urban design, covering place and good urban design, as well as its different scales. It reviews key urban design movements and ideas and examines the use of development control plans and approaches to sustainable urban design. It emphasises the actual process of urban design using case studies, practical workshops, and design projects. This subject also provides an introduction to Sketch-Up and various Adobe Creative Cloud applications, which enables students to further their visual communication skills necessary for practice and subsequent subjects.

Subject learning objectives (SLOs)

On successful completion of this subject, students should be able to:

1.	Develop skills to use a variety of resources and evidence base to conduct an evaluation of urban design problems and prospects in cities.
2.	Apply environmental, economic and social sustainability and urban design principles to critique plans and develop real-world urban design proposals.
3.	Conduct 2D presentation and 3D visualisation tasks to explain context, analyse impacts and develop suitable urban design proposals.
4.	Integrate creativity and innovation in urban design solutions.
5.	Comprehend the urban designer’s role and develop a reflective understanding of one’s own perspective.
6.	Develop effective communication strategies in multidisciplinary environments.

Course intended learning outcomes (CILOs)

This subject also contributes to the following Course Intended Learning Outcomes:

Enable reflective practice on one's personal views and values and interpret how they might affect one's professional judgement (A.1)
Communicate with people with a wide variety of cultural, social, economic, and political perspectives and interests using verbal, written, and visual media (C.2)
Develop creative solutions to complex problems based on research and evaluation (I.1)
Apply a wide array of analytic tools (which may include spreadsheets, geographic information software, three-dimensional simulations, or negotiation tools) to determine constraints and opportunities (P.3)
Develop and apply the principles of urban design to analyse places (P.5)
Explore the principles of environmental, economic and social sustainability and apply them to analysing and developing plans and design solutions (P.7)

Contribution to the development of graduate attributes

The term CAPRI is used for the five Design, Architecture and Building faculty graduate attribute categories where:

C = communication and groupwork

A = attitudes and values

P = practical and professional

R = research and critique

I = innovation and creativity.

Course intended learning outcomes (CILOs) are linked to these categories using codes (e.g. C-1, A-3, P-4, etc.).

Teaching and learning strategies

This subject is taught fully online. Each week is self-paced through the learning management system. You are
expected to complete a range of different learning activities throughout the week. Activities provide opportunities to
learn, apply and discuss the knowledge gained in a practical manner. Feedback is provided from both peers and
teaching staff throughout the activities. You are encouraged to actively provide feedback and interact with staff and
students in the exercises and on the discussion board(s). Online Zoom sessions will be held regularly throughout the
subject to allow you to interact with staff and students, ask questions and receive clarification and formative feedback
on your assignments.

Content (topics)

1. Understanding Context and History

2. Connected Places

3. The Structure of Places

4. Social Life in Places

5. Implementing Urban Design Guidelines

6. Case Studies of Urban Design

Assessment

Assessment task 1: Draft: Story-telling Skills for Urban Designers

Intent:

Learn how to effectively tell a story of a place through an urban design lens. Through spatial analysis, which considers qualitative and quantitative aspects of place, this series of weekly tasks will showcase how to utilise various graphic techniques and principles to develop a series of place-based outputs that will be used to weave together a graphic-rich story of place in a narrated form.

Objective(s):

This task addresses the following subject learning objectives:

1, 2, 3, 5 and 6

This task also addresses the following course intended learning outcomes that are linked with a code to indicate one of the five CAPRI graduate attribute categories (e.g. C.1, A.3, P.4, etc.):

C.2, P.3, P.5 and P.7

Type:

Design/drawing/plan/sketch

Groupwork:

Individual

Weight:

40%

Criteria linkages:

Criteria	Weight (%)	SLOs	CILOs
TASK: Ability to utilise prescribed software / communication method to communicate place.	40	3	P.3
COMMUNICATIONS: Clear visual analysis and articulation of the narrative about the place.	25	1	P.7
COMMUNICATIONS: Clear and precise graphics, imagery and presentation.	15	6	P.3
ANALYSIS + REFERENCING: Text elements are insightful and supported by evidence eg. references to APA 7 standard.	10	2	P.5
MIRO BOARD + COLLABORATION: Engage with collective feedback	10	5	C.2

SLOs: subject learning objectives
CILOs: course intended learning outcomes

Assessment task 2: Story-telling Skills for Urban Designers

Intent:

Combine all of the previous draft deliverables into a single document that effectively tells a story of a place through an urban design lens.

Objective(s):

This task addresses the following subject learning objectives:

1, 2, 3, 5 and 6

This task also addresses the following course intended learning outcomes that are linked with a code to indicate one of the five CAPRI graduate attribute categories (e.g. C.1, A.3, P.4, etc.):

C.2, P.3, P.5 and P.7

Type:

Design/drawing/plan/sketch

Groupwork:

Individual

Weight:

40%

Length:

1,500 words (+/- 10%), maximum 25 images

Word count can be presented in a variety of forms: short responses, image/mapping descriptions, long-form prose etc.

Criteria linkages:

Criteria	Weight (%)	SLOs	CILOs
TASK: Ability to utilise prescribed software / communication method to communicate place.	40	3	P.3
COMMUNICATIONS: Clear visual analysis and articulation of the narrative about the place.	25	1	P.7
COMMUNICATIONS: Clear and precise graphics, imagery and presentation.	15	6	P.3
ANALYSIS + REFERENCING: Text elements are insightful and supported by evidence eg. references to APA 7 standard.	10	2	P.5
MIRO BOARD + COLLABORATION: Engage with collective feedback	10	5	C.2

SLOs: subject learning objectives
CILOs: course intended learning outcomes

Assessment task 3: Urban design: Vision

Intent:

In this assessment, you will apply your knowledge of major approaches to urban design (different ways in which we can 'read' the city) and your storytelling skills (developed in the weekly tutorials) to develop an overall vision for the redesign of your site. The story you developed about your chosen site through the weekly tasks (Assessment 1) provides the background site analysis that will be the basis of the urban design vision you will develop here. Your vision will comprise high-level conceptual ideas that build on the strengths and mitigate weaknesses, making the best use of the opportunities the site offers and managing the threats. It should explore the role of the site within its context.

Objective(s):

This task addresses the following subject learning objectives:

2, 4 and 6

This task also addresses the following course intended learning outcomes that are linked with a code to indicate one of the five CAPRI graduate attribute categories (e.g. C.1, A.3, P.4, etc.):

A.1, I.1, P.3 and P.7

Type:

Project

Groupwork:

Individual

Weight:

20%

Criteria linkages:

Criteria	Weight (%)	SLOs	CILOs
COMMUNICATIONS: Clarity of communications in text and graphical form	20	6	P.3
VISION: Ability to integrate sustainability principles and urban design theory	20	2	P.7
SPATIAL LAYOUT: Clearly articulates the impacts and means of implementation both visually and through text annotations	20	4	A.1
PRINCIPLES + SPATIAL LAYOUT: Ability to responds to sites constraints and opportunities	40	4	I.1

SLOs: subject learning objectives
CILOs: course intended learning outcomes

Minimum requirements

Students must achieve at least 50% of the subject’s total mark.

Required texts

All required texts are indicated on Canvas.