Urban design

The course is made of some theoretical lectures introducing Western Urban Planning and the XIX and XX centuries city and a Laboratory, dedicated to the African City and titiled « Improving the African City », that will be introduced by some dedicated lectures as well.

The main lectures will be organized around three topics : 

1. Urban Planning Models from the XIXth and XXth centuries

2. Starting Documents of Modern Urban Planning 

3. XXth century model New Towns

The Laboratory will focus on the city of Youndè, as study case representative of the condition of African cities and on the topic of the upgrade of the most environmental degradeted areas, such as open air landfills, abandoned or under-used areas or the so-called «brown-fields». The students will be asked to divide themselves in small groups (2/3 students) and go around the city or within the neighborhoods they live and map the more critical urban conditions/situations from an environmental point of view, through different tools: sketches, photos, videos, descriptions, surveys. These materials will than be discussed with the teachers, in order to «build» together maps and themes of environmental degradation within Yaoundé. The purpose of this work is to build an Atlas of the main places and themes and of urban strategies, in order to propose solutions for situations of urban degradation within the African City. 

Each week the students will handle-in to the teachers the materials and a new task will be explained.

Alltogether the studens will have 3 intermediate deliveries (Thursday November 26^th, December 3^rd and December 10^th) and a final one, which will be fixed few weeks later. The final evaluation will consider all 4 deliveries.