Design Studio

The semester in Sustainable Urban Landscapes deals with urban design in a wider perspective – the whole urban landscape. Sustainable Urban Landscape starts out from the fact that cities of today are no longer isolated, but must be treated on a regional scale. This idea has produced new concepts such as The Network City (Manuel Castells) and The Regional City (Peter Calthorpe), the implication being that collective transports, roads and other infrastructure must be integrated and planned together with the urban structure.

Sustainability is not only a matter of environmental fit and effectiveness, it also implies the concept of Liveable Cities – cities that are attractive to live and work in. How can we create cities that are at the same time environmentally sustainable in the long term, inclusive, socially diverse, and attractive to live it? This studio-based course introduces a design project beginning with the regional landscape scale. Students propose strategies for growth and move through scales down to the detailed design of urban landscapes.

Aim

The aim of this course is to deepen the student’s knowledge and understanding for landscape components as a point of departure and object for design measures. A further objective of the course is to help the student become well familiar with planning strategies for sustainable built environments in rural and semi-rural zones. In addition, the aim is to develop advanced skills on the part of the student in the design of long-term sustainable environments taking into account cultural environments and their surroundings.

Study Trip

Within the course we make a study trip which is combined with a workshop. During the previous years we made trips to the Scotland, Norway, Switzerland. Even if you have been to those places before, this study trip will show the cities from a different point of view – that of an urban designer, as we engage in various visits, tours and get lectures from local professionals.

Guest Teachers, Lecturers

The design studio is frequently visited by invited professionals from the field of architecture, urban design, ecology and landscape architecture. They contribute to the design studio by giving lectures, engaging in the presentations as jury members or by discussing students' projects during tutorials. The following list includes some of the participating professionals who were part of the course in the last years.

Jens Kvorning (Copenhagen Municipality), Tom Nielsen (Aarhus School of Architecture), Jenny Osuldsen (Ax:son Johnson Guest Professor, Snøhetta), Björn Ekelund (Warm In The Winter), Tess Broekmans (Uhrhan Urban Design), Harrison Fraker (Ax:son Johnson Guest Professor, UC Berkeley), Daniel Wasden (Lund Municipality), Åsa Bjerndell (White Arkitekter), Morten Leicht Jeppsen (SLA), Pär Gustafsson (Alnarp)

Requirements

Obligatory for those participating in this design studio is the theoretical course ASBN11 Urban Recycling Theory and Methods

Credits: 15hec

Studio Leader: Louise Lövenstierne

Course Examiner: Peter Siöström