11185 Contemporary Issues in Landscape Architecture

Description

This subject introduces:

1. the realities of cities, their regional context and urban development, both across time and in different geographical locations and cultural settings, and
2. ideas about cities, especially within the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning and design.

In keeping with this cross-disciplinary approach, the subject also explores the interdependency of cities, regions and territories, and the biophysical, infrastructural and logistical systems that bind them. It also introduces key issues facing cities and regions into the future.

The subject emphasises the particular disciplinary perspectives and traditions that both architecture and landscape architecture bring to the understanding of cities, particularly the culture of urbanism that these two disciplines have evolved through built and unbuilt projects, writings, visual representations, exhibitions and other forms of research, analysis, speculation and debate.

The subject builds on knowledge gained from previous history and theory subjects, and extends it with an understanding of the range of forces and processes that shape cities and their urbanisms. It also examines theories of cities and urbanism, especially those directed at urban transformation from within architecture and landscape architecture.

Particular cities are examined in relation to specific themes, including:

• industrialisation and modernisation
• colonialism
• production, consumption, labour and economic forces
• governance, political processes and urban development
• demographic change
• theories of urban experience
• public space
• infrastructure
• spaces of public and private life
• landscape urbanism
• post- and ex-urbanism
• suburbia
• informal settlements
• urban ecology
• the city as a site of research and speculation for architecture and landscape architecture.

The subject enables students to contextualise aspects of their architectural studio work within different arguments and debates about what a city is and how architecture contributes to cities and the challenges they face. The subject also considers the ways in which various tools of representation are used to document the city and urban landscapes, as well as to shape new visions for urban environments.

The objectives of the subject include providing students with the skills to research, discuss, debate and design cities and urban environments, drawing on the specific strengths of their architectural or landscape architectural background.