The course focuses on city design and planning at the current times of rapid urban transformations and of a different, more integrated, approach to urban planning per se. It discusses the globalisation-induced changes of the labour market, the increased human mobility and its consequences on worldwide urban development. Moreover, it explores processes such as large-scale urban renewal projects, the present and future of post-socialist cities, the role of architecture not as a framework but as an infrastructure within city competition and the role of governance in urban management and in claiming different visions for the city and public spaces. At the same time, the course discusses the increase in inequalities, migration dynamics, the rapid urbanisation of developing countries and the amplification of environmental and social crises.
The assessment of the course is done through a project (individually or as a team) and it takes place in two stages (30% of the final grade come from the first and 70% from the second). The topics are chosen in agreement with the course tutor and the teams and the neighbourhoods must be confirmed by mid-march 2011.