Urban Design Education: Designing a Pedagogy for an Evolving Field

“Programs and courses in urban design have been offered for a century. Surprisingly little attention has been given to the nature of the ends and means of these teaching endeavours. This extraordinary volume presents a comprehensive understanding of our present aspirations. Heeding its messages will allow educators to design curricula with confidence that their efforts will be fruitful.”

“While research in the field of urban design has flourished, and multiple new urban design programs have appeared in universities around the world, the pedagogy of urban design has been largely unexplored. Urban Design Education remedies this serious gap. Through a series of detailed case studies drawn from their own experiences as urban design educators, the authors give us a rich and detailed account of the different components that should be part of urban design pedagogy. The book nicely combines insightful practical guidance about urban design training with critical reflection about how such training can help society respond to contemporary urban challenges.”

“Urban Design Education: Designing a Pedagogy for an Evolving Field, provides fascinating insights for prospective students, seasoned educators, university administrators and practitioners. The authors are to be congratulated for their deep reflection on their educational processes. This discussion of the challenges involved in teaching urban design at postgraduate level is refreshingly informative and honest.”

“As cities expand and intensify at a global scale, the challenge to shape our cities in a more intensive, just, walkable, sustainable and creative manner becomes crucial. The disciplines of architecture and urban planning, from which the field of urban design emerged, are traditionally ill-equipped to deal with the morphological, social and economic complexities involved. This book is a major contribution to the development of new urban design pedagogies. How do we define the necessary knowledge and skills, and how can we most effectively teach them? This is the first book of its kind and will become a key text in this emerging field.”

“In recent decades we have seen a steady flow of writings on every aspect of urban design, from what is it, to how we do it, to what is its impact. But despite the outpouring, there has been remarkably little written about how we teach it. This makes this contribution with its focus on practices at Cardiff University even more valuable as it opens important questions around what is the right pedagogy for urban design? and in answering them helps to fill important gaps in our knowledge. A valuable read for all urban design educators.”

“As a field of endeavour, urban design has expanded rapidly in every sense over the past two decades. However, apart from an occasional academic paper on the subject, the implications for education have been largely underexplored. This shortcoming is now addressed by this important contribution from Kamalipour and Peimani, who seek to advocate a more informed approach to urban design education. Exploring a diverse range pedagogical approaches, it is a must read for any urban design educator.”

“An excellent documentation and exploration of how Kamalipour and Peimani have designed and continually refined one of the UK’s most notable postgraduate urban design programmes, setting out important and critical ideas on what and how to teach, relevant to both educators and urban designers in our complex and fast evolving field of practice.”