CRP 384.6
Wed 2.00pm -5.00pm, SUT 3.112
Open to all CRP students, open to others with instructor permission
Keenan Smith: keenan.e.smith.aia@gmail.com
Design for Planners-1 presents a special elective opportunity and an interesting learning experience, combining engaging seminars with an informal interactive design studio environment. Students are typically motivated City and Regional Planning students who may be particularly interested in understanding design thinking, and acquiring, evolving, and advancing some useful design skills commonly encountered by the planning profession.
This course is specifically tailored to future planners, and all those interested in the larger scales of the built environment (building > city > region), with a strong emphasis on “Place-Making.” It is open to all CRP students & others by permission. No previous design or drawing skills are expected. We will be concerned with cultivating creative acts through the traditional "hand-mind-eye" process, conceiving inspired ideas & and their convincing representations through visual thinking & techniques. Once conceived, vetted and tested, we’ll advance, adapt develop these concepts, continuing by hand or via the "digital" realm (leveraging its powerful refinement and representational tools), or both.
Our focus will be cultivating, developing, and refining design thinking & ideas, and exploring the most appropriate, effective means of illustrating, representing, communicating, and presenting them to others. Normatively, we will use one or more propositional sites and "para-professional" design/development projects as vehicles for developing design and communication skills. Sites will be located within walking distance from UT, and we will pick the major project site(s) "semi-Democratically" as a class. Throughout, there will be special emphasis on 3-D and visualization (perspective views and modeling forms), developing a deep understanding of the spatial, visual and physical aspects of Planning & Design, and (critically) organizing and delivering effective presentations (“The Designer’s Tools of Persuasion”). In short, this will be an excellent opportunity for students wishing to explore connections between Urban Planning and the Design Professions, to learn “Design & Visual Thinking,” and to acquire (or continue to advance) creative design skills, while envisioning physical planning and design possibilities for prospective sites.