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

design?What is

✤ 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 URBANISM?

✤What do you need to learn in order to be an “urbanist”?

✤What are the qualifications you need to have at the end of the Masters course at TU Delft?

✤Apart from skills and tools, what else do you need to learn to be a good urbanist?

✤What is the difference between a professional education (HBO) and a higher education degree (university)?

What does

“Master of Science” mean?

✤At the end of the TU Delft course, you will be a... ?

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

I know it all...

I don’t know

nothing!

Students who raise the alarm

You need to have a critical attitude, combined with an open and inquisitive mind.

Einstein said that:

imaginationismoreimportantthanknowledge

But there was more to it!

We believe that knowledge propels imagination and creativity and makes your doing relevant to the world

Knowledge is the raw material of imagination.

Ya Betcha!

But, what is Knowledge?

?

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!)

Hmmmm

Knowledge is true justified belief

Platoc. 428–427 BC, to c. 348–347 BC, Athens

justified

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.

But there are different kinds of KNOWLEDGE

And different ways to get to that

KNOWLEDGE

Have a look at the following picture

What knowledge is contained in the picture?

What can you know?

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.

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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)

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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)

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Which one is the right answer?

It all depends on the QUESTION one is asking!

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

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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.

Looking at the big picture

Example of primary source of data, information and policies

Different logics of enquiry

do not stem only from

different objects of enquiry

Different logics of enquiry

... also stem from different

world views and communities of

practice

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?

Sao Paulo, Brazil, pop. 18 million (2010)

But THIS is not so complex... Or is it?

Delft, The Netherlands, pop.: 96.000 (2008)

Urbanisation in the Netherlands, 1950 Urbanisation in the Netherlands, 2010

Delft Delft

Urbanisation in the Randstad, 1950 Urbanisation in the Randstad, 2010

Delft Delft

Complex enough for you?Commuting patterns in The Randstad (2008), source: VROM.

KLM Routes 1964 KLM Routes 2004

Was this complex

already? Just wait...

Metropolitain de Paris 2005 Tokyo Subway system 2008

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?

What (the hell) do we want with this course?

✤ 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

✤

Current structure of the master in Urbanism at TU Delft

Booklet

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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

r.c.rocco@tudelft.nl SpatialPlanning&Strategy

See all my presentations at http://issuu.com/robertorocco or http://slideshare/robertorocco

Roberto Rocco