Download - Methodology for Urbanism students
Prepared by Roberto Rocco
Chair Spatial Planning and Strategy, TU Delft
Photo: ChernobylBob at Flickr
Challenge the futureChallenge the future
SpatialPlanning&Strategy
Methodology for Urbanism
You can get more information about the chair Spatial Planning and Strategy by visiting our website at http://www.spatialplanning.bk.tudelft.nl/ or our BLOG at http://spatialplanningtudelft.eu/
SpatialPlanning&Strategy
✤ Is design the visual artifact? (drawings, models, renderings?)
✤ Is design the visual representation of something one has invented or imagined?
✤ Or is design the combination of the visual representation of the artifact and the description of the processes and uses that it might facilitate?
✤ IN SHORT: the spatial organization of PROCESSES?
✤What is the difference between a professional education (HBO) and a higher education degree (university)?
Welcome to the methodology course!
Roberto RoccoSpatial Planning and
Strategy
Egbert StolkEnvironmental
Technology and Design
Machiel van DorstEnvironmental
Technology and Design
Vincent NadinSpatial Planning and
Strategy
We believe that knowledge propels imagination and creativity and makes your doing relevant to the world
It is what we know (for a fact), as opposed to what we believe or assume (which is subjective and could very well be wrong!)
(but actually...there is a lot of discussion about the essence of knowledge, starting from Plato onwards,
and even before!)
In this course✤ Knowledge is active engagement with the object to be known. This means that you need to ‘work’ in order to know: to study, to research, to draw, to design, to discuss and to communicate.
✤ (That’s why we have this course: to understand different ways of knowing in Urbanism)
✤ Knowledge exists inter-subjectively and through communication.
✤ This means that knowledge is a construction between you, the object and others (in our case, your colleagues and teachers. Later, your clients or users).
✤ To ‘know’ means to be able to communicate that knowledge.
In this perspective
Knowledge that exists only in your
head is IRRELEVANT, unless it manifests itself
in your DOING and then can be accessed
by others.
David Goldblatt, "Saturday Morning at the Hypermarket: Semi-final of the Miss Lovely Legs Competition, Boksburg, Transvaal, 28 June 1980"
Exercise from STAINTON-ROGERS, W. (2006), Logics of Enquiry, in Doing Postgraduate Research , Ed. Stephen Potter, London: Sage.
Now read the following texts written about the photography and decide which one comes closest to the knowledge gained? What are other insights you can have by reading these commentaries?
Last night, Charmaine du Preez was crowned Miss Lovely Legs Noksburg for 1974. Charmaine is a 2nd year student at Sukses secretarial College and says her hobbies are reading, watching films and [going to] the gym. Charmaine said the she was thrilled that the judges chose her out of so many deserving competitors and would try her utmost to live up to everything expected of her during her reign.
Exe
rcis
e fr
om S
TAIN
TO
N-R
OG
ER
S, W
. (20
06),
Log
ics
of E
nqui
ry, i
n D
oing
Po
stgr
adua
te R
esea
rch
, Ed.
Ste
phen
Pot
ter,
Lon
don:
Sag
e.
Although one does not want to further denigrate the participants in such contests, nor ascribe personally malign motives to those who consume those images, the political implications of such ‘cattle parades’ are inescapable: women are turned into objects in a male-dominated world. Such practices are the visible manifestations of an all-pervasive patriarchal culture.
(Patsy Smith-Collins, International Journal of Feminist Studies)
Exe
rcis
e fr
om S
TAIN
TO
N-R
OG
ER
S, W
. (20
06),
Log
ics
of E
nqui
ry, i
n D
oing
Pos
tgra
duat
e R
esea
rch
, E
d. S
teph
en P
otte
r, L
ondo
n: S
age.
In this photograph, Goldblatt again explores the semiotic (and now perhaps even nostalgic?) possibilities of 1970s suburbia, so fetchingly oblivious of the larger political forces playing themselves out in the context of apartheid South Africa. The careful juxtaposition of the foregrounded white contestants and the predominantly black audience plays with the irony of the white culture as an object of black consumption.
(Mandla Nkosi, Art World)
Exe
rcis
e fr
om S
TAIN
TO
N-R
OG
ER
S, W
. (20
06),
Log
ics
of E
nqui
ry, i
n D
oing
Pos
tgra
duat
e R
esea
rch
, Ed.
S
teph
en P
otte
r, L
ondo
n: S
age.
Which one is the right question?
That QUESTION depends on your ‘world view’, that is, from what perspective you approach the subject *. These different world views result in different ‘logics of enquiry’
URBANISM @ TU DELFT
OTBChair:Urban an Regional Development
Prof. Wil Zonneveld
OTBChair:Neighbourhood Change and Housing
Prof. Maarten van Ham
Chair:Environmental Technology
Prof. Arjan van Timmeren
Chair:Cultural History & Design
Prof. Eric Luiten
Chair:Landscape Architecture
Prof. Dirk Sijmons
Chair:Urban Design
Prof. Henco Bekkering
Chair:Theory & Methods
Prof. Han Meyer
Chair:The Why Factory
Prof. Winy Maas
Chair:Spatial Planning & Strategy
Prof. Vincent Nadin
Chair:Design & PoliticsProf. Wouter Vanstiphout
Section: Spatial Planning & Strateg
y
Section: Urban D
esignSection: Urban L
andscape
Org
anis
atio
nal
Tre
e of
the
Dep
artm
ent o
f Urb
anis
m, T
U D
elft
, jan
201
3 b
y R
ober
to R
occo
Section: Environmental Technology
The Practical Question
The Theoretical Question
design oriented
theory oriented
HOW TO? WHAT IS?
How to design a child-friendly city?
What is a child-friendly city?
Now, what questions can be asked by looking at this picture?
Flatjes in de Kruiskamp Amersfoort, The Netherlands. (Foto Chantal Spieard, Source: NCR Handelsblad, 21 Jan 2011.
Increasing complexity of space
✤ The increasing complexity of living environments and the tools to understand them results in increasingly complex research paradigms.
✤ After all, there are new tools for analysis, new combinations of disciplines and new QUESTIONS that need to be answered.
Increasing complexity
✤The increasing complexity of research paradigms in urbanism results in the perception that a practical education on design skills alone is insufficient to deal with the broader task at hand:
New questions need to be answered by
different kinds of people
The broader task at hand
✤ To understand the context, the role and wishes of stakeholders and the socio-political forces that ultimately produce ‘real world’ space in order to be able to intervene effectively and in communication with stakeholders
And I have to do
all this?
✤ 1. to develop your critical thinking skills
✤ 2. to be able to understand different worldviews and different logics of enquiry deriving from them
✤ 3. to be able to COMMUNICATE your ideas and results using image and text.
✤ 4. To understand the ethical issues involved in the activity
We want you!
We want you to make relevant connections between
RESEARCH and DESIGN in order to
Enhance your creativity &Fundament your designs
But we also hope you can have a better understanding of your role as a reflective and responsible practitioner later on.
So, why this course?
✤ To REFLECT on the character and content of the education given in the Urbanism department (What do we learn from whom and why?)
✤ To UNDERSTAND the importance and the usefulness of an academic attitude in the university education and in the professional practice
✤ To give INPUT to the education (What are new needs and aspirations of young urban planners and designers?)
✤ To prepare for the GRADUATION YEAR and beyond
✤
Booklet
�
%6�9����6IWIEVGL��(IWMKR�1IXLSHSPSK]�JSV�9VFERMWQ�
Photo by Matt Smith©
'HSDUWPHQW�RI�8UEDQLVP&KDLU�6SDWLDO�3ODQQLQJ�DQG�6WUDWHJ\
:WH[PHS7SHUUPUN :[YH[LN`
&KDOOHQJH�WKH�IXWXUH
/RS[PIHKI�MW�EGXMZI�IRKEKIQIRX�[MXL�XLI�SFNIGX�XS�FI�ORS[R��8LMW�QIERW�XLEX�]SY�RIIH�XS�·[SVO �̧MR�SVHIV�XS�ORS[��XS�WXYH]��XS�VIWIEVGL��XS�HIWMKR��XS�HMWGYWW�ERH�XS�GSQQYRMGEXI��
Thanks for listening! Questions?With special thanks to Matt Smith (ChernobylBob) of Gloucester, UK, whose photos adorn these pages.
Matt’s photographs are available at: www.flickr.com/photos/chernobylbob/
Prepared by Roberto Rocco, TU Delft
[email protected] SpatialPlanning&Strategy
See all my presentations at http://issuu.com/robertorocco or http://slideshare/robertorocco
Roberto Rocco