SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE (V-SPARC)
COURSE SYLLABUS
AY 2021-22
WINTER SEMESTER
COURSE: ARC4005 URBAN DESIGN
ASSIGNMENT DETAILS (DA1, DA2 DA3)
EPJ ASSIGNMENT BRIEF
DIGITAL ASSIGNMENT 1 DUE DATE: 25TH FEB, 2021
Book or Chapter Review: (NOT LESS THAN 1500 WORDS)
1. Why did you choose this book? Give reasons.
2. Content and concept of the book.
3. Do you have one or several authors?
4. When was it published? and the publisher details
5. How it is structured? Does the book has chapters or parts ( because few books have parts and each
part is divided in to several chapters)
6. What makes you to choose (that) particular chapter?
What is the main argument (critical assessment)?
What is the theme of the book? Does the author cover it completely?
How does the author support stated argument? Does he or she use proofs, facts, and pieces of
evidence? Are those proofs convincing? Are they contrary to the known facts?
Does this argument make any sense? Is the author persuasive?
How does the information from the book help to understand the topic.
What is your opinion about the book ( personal assessment)
Who will be the audiences for this book? Do you think they appreciate after reading the book.
What is a review? (Source: University of North Carolina)
A review is a critical evaluation of a text, event, object, or phenomenon. Reviews can consider books, articles,
entire genres or fields of literature, architecture, art, fashion, restaurants, policies etc. But we are focussing on
Book/ Chapter reviews.
Above all, a review makes an argument. The most important element of a review is that it is a commentary,
not merely a summary. It allows you to enter into dialogue and discussion with the work’s creator and with
other audiences. You can offer agreement or disagreement and identify where you find the work exemplary or
deficient in its knowledge, judgments, or organization. You should clearly state your opinion of the work in
question, and that statement will probably resemble other types of academic writing, with a thesis statement,
supporting body paragraphs, and a conclusion.
LISTS OF URBAN DESIGN AND PLANNING BOOKS
1. A New Theory of Urban Design - Authors: Christopher Alexander, Hajo Neis. Artemis Anninou, Ingrid
King
2. The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs (1961)
3. The Image of the City by Kevin Lynch (1960) (Available in our library)
4. Good City Form by Kevin Lynch (1995) (Available in our library)
5. City sense and city design by Kevin Lynch (Available in our library)
6. A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction
by Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, and Murray Silverstein (1976) (Available in our library)
7. Design With Nature by Ian L. McHarg (1995)
8. Jan Gehl - An architect and urban designer famous for refocusing design and planning on the human
scale. Author of Life Between Buildings; Public Spaces, Public Life; and Cities for People,
9. William H. Whyte - 1980 book The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces
10. Public places urban spaces Matthew Carmona, Steven Tiesdell, Tim Heath, TanerOc ) (Available in our
library)
11. Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design Charles Montgomery
12. Design of cities – Edmund Bacon (Available in our library)
13. The City Shaped Urban Patterns and Meanings Through History (PP) by Kostof Spiro (Available in our
library)
14. The urban design reader - Michael Larice, Elizabeth MacDonald
15. How to study public life by Birgitte Svarre and Jan Gehl
16. Urban Transformation Understanding City design and Formby Bosselmann Peter (Available in our
library)
17. The art of building cities – Camillo sitte
18. The concise Townscape – Gordon Cullen
DIGITAL ASSIGNMENT 2 DUE DATE: 16th March, 2021
Urban Terminologies and their definitions (60) will be provided and students will be asked either to
give a test or to have one to one discussion in order to evaluate their understanding with respect to
urban design terms.
DIGITAL ASSIGNMENT 3 DUE DATE: 15th APRIL , 2021
Urban Design in times of Covid-19: Imagining a post-pandemic city. Today, coronavirus has forced us to take a
hard look at our cities. Urban designers and architects are in a state to re-imagine and decongest important
key spaces of our lives. Examples of few public spaces are given below:
For example a street market, an office ,a theatre, Temple precinct, parks, etc. (Only 2 students are allowed
to choose the same typology ).
Read the following article to get some spark.
https://www.hindustantimes.com/real-estate/urban-design-in-times-of-covid-19-imagining-a-post-pandemic-
city/story-V0phVoGL4gF3sgvnclBNqJ.html .
The task of this assignment is each student have to take up any public spaces (of their choice) - an area not
less than 5000 Sq.feet.
The workplace in a post-covid world needs to re-evaluate priorities and be prepared to respond with swiftness
and agility to the next big disruption. As an architect and urban designers – how you will re-configure the
work space (say for example –office spaces) in order to allow physical distancing and also think about
strategies how different types of technology can be incorporated in our built spaces. Come up with some
innovative ideas which are relevant to built environment.
EPJ ASSIGNMENT for Urban Design( ARC4005)
Deadline: First review (30 marks) ( 6th and 7th March, 2021) (2 people in a group)
Second review (30 marks) (23rd March, 2021)
Final Review (40 marks) (4th May, 2021)
Choose a place of your choice. The area should be of 1Km in diameter and should have undergone
significant physical change through its history, particularly over the past 10-20 years. The changes it
has undergone might be positive or negative but must be observable. And choose an area that interests you
a great deal, since the job of procuring information will consume more time.
Tasks to be completed in Review 1
1. Reasons for selecting the chosen area.
2. Significance of the place
3. Details in terms of history and morphology
4. Analyse the area in terms of changes in land use, social and economic changes.
Tasks to be completed in Review 2:
1. Take 10 principles of urban design (based on the philosophy of urban designers) and analyze the
chosen site w. r to 10 principles.
2. In addition to the above do a visual survey with at least 10 parameters of your choice
This EPJ Component will be in the form of a report which includes both illustrations (maps, sketches, photos,
or other media) of the physical environment showing patterns of development, architectural typologies, etc.,
as well as descriptions and data about the evolving functions of the place and its role in society.
1. Discuss the key forces which resulted in physical and functional change. These forces may include,
for example, changes in the economic function of the place, social structure, introduction of new
public infrastructure, changes in the rules of development.
2. Predict the future of your area. Evaluate the forces for change that are now active. Consider if
these are a consequence of the historical change of events that have affected this place in the city,
or whether a whole new set of forces and interactions are now at play.
Data collection should be from an authentic source.
Refer Urban design thesis available online and also refer the below link to get an idea how to do a visual
survey
Visual survey for urban design
Time-Saver Standards for Urban Design
By Robert G. Shibley (eds)
Note : Rubrics for evaluation will be posted while introducing the assignment.
