Urban Design for Sustainability

URBAN DESIGN, Learning how to produce more liveable environments

The School of Sustainability in partnership with Urban Design Centre of WA and the Curtin University Sustainability Policy Institute, offers an intensive one week course in sustainable urban design. The course will also allow participants to apply these concepts in a practical fieldwork project after the week of formal lecture and discussion sessions.

Why Urban Design for Sustainability?

Design has become recognised as very important in influencing the function and quality of cities.

What Qualities make some places work and why do others function poorly?

This course will explore responsive places that are enriched through maximising choice. Based on a seminal Urban Design book Responsive Environments : A manual for Designers, the course will explain the urban design qualities that provide for choice at many levels:-

• Where people can go - the quality of Permeability;
• The range of uses available to people - the quality of variety;
• How easily people can understand a place - the quality of legibility;
• The flexibility to use a place for a variety of purposes - the quality of robustness;
• The appearance and enjoyment of places - the Qualities of visual appropriateness, and richness; and
• How comfortable and familiar is the place - the quality of Personalisation.

We want to make places better, but what is meant by better and for whom?

The production of the built environment is undertaken in parallel with political and social institutions. The social environment shapes design responses, and in turn, design responses affect choices and shape the social environment. The course will cover social equity in design and particularly consider the retreating public realm.

Why is Urban design so important to sustainability?

Traditional urban design contributes to robust urban places that promote travel choice and provide for responsive places where people can live, work, and play. The design basis for liveable Neighborhoods will be explained and examples of innovative new urbanist developments in Perth will be outlined.

Who should attend?

The course will be of particular interest to:

• Officers in Local and State Government departments dealing with various aspects of Perth's urban and regional planning and transport development;
• Employees of planning and transport consulting firms;
• Developers and real estate professionals;
• Members of community groups campaigning for better urban environments

The unit will be held 14-17 April 2009

Please go to the Course Information and on-line applications here at the Urban Design Centre's web-site.

If you would like more information, please contact

e-mail: info@udcwa.org
phone: (08) 9360 2913