Design, Module, and Excursion: Shrinking Cities

The educational objective of this project is to put students in a position where they recognize the problems and potentials of concrete situations, are able to formulate pertinent planning questions, and can answer these questions using contemporary urban-planning resources. Through topical tasks, students are to experience urban development as comprehensive interdisciplinary exploration and to address it as a design-related challenge, including its social, economic, ecological, and processual implications. The mediation of adequate methods of analysis, planning, and rendering is an essential facet of the coursework.
The theme of this project and the excursion destination involve the “shrinking cities” in the USA, such as Detroit, Cleveland, or New Orleans. Similar to the module on urbanism, this design module focuses on the strategic approach to dealing with shrinking processes and the already existing planning possibilities.