Course guide of Urban Design 4 (2091149)

It is recommended to have taken and passed Architectural Graphic Expression 1, 2, and 3. Mainly, it would also be necessary to have taken and passed Urban Design 1, Urban Design 2, and Urban Design 3.

As a recommendation, interested students are encouraged to consider taking the elective course Monograph on Urban Design and Landscape, either prior to Urban Design 4 (in a previous course) or, even more appropriately, simultaneously in the same semester.

According to the Plan of Studies of the Degree in Architecture of the University of Granada, each didactic unit has a generic descriptor and a specific relation of contents that constitute the framework from which the programs of the different subjects it contains must be proposed. In this case, the generic descriptor and the specific relation of contents of Teaching Unit 8, Territory and Landscape, are applicable. "It is possible that the difference between the terms landscape and territory lies in the contribution of man, that the landscape is nothing more than a territory visited and transformed by an action, the interpretation and understanding of nature. The relationship between nature/action (representation) is a complementary flow in both directions that goes from the registration on the map of the identities of the territory to, and vice versa, ideas, arguments, and actions that are transferred to nature and cause a particular form of occupation and monetization of the territory. The landscape of our time is not a pure or watertight landscape, it has become a place contaminated by the incidence of numerous factors and interests, among which are residual landscapes, decontextualized industries and urban voids. The discussion focuses on the actions and processes that determine a notion of landscape, independent of the elaboration of a priori forms and figures. According to this, the creative procedures of architecture construct an unestablished idea of landscape."

Its descriptors are:

UD 8. Territory and landscape.

• City / territory. Colonization and occupation systems. Territorial identities. Maps.
• Profitable production structures: agriculture, industry, and urban. Aggregate landscapes. Infrastructure and urban facilities. Environment and ecology. Nature and artifice. Energies. Sustainability. Recycling. Planning. Urbanization. Spatial planning. Other architectures.

The course will provide knowledge related to:

1. Sustainability criteria in urbanization processes. Environment: ecology and sustainability.
2. Urban project and public space. Criteria and instruments.
3. Organization of residential uses. The organization of equipment and services. Productive, industrial, and tourist uses. Mobility.
4. Intervening in different places of the city and areas of mixed uses: centers, peripheral and/or suburban housing, areas of transition of use. Project of the places of mobility.
5. Identity of the places, the weight of the geography, and the relief of the conception of the project. Approach to Urbanism "From the South".
6. Urbanism, land and landscape planning. Urban planning. Formulation of multi-scale strategies.
7. Territorial and metropolitan projects and planning. New urban polarities and intersections.
8. Large containers, "parks" (thematic, technological, etc.), and metropolitan landscapes.
9. Adaptation of historical centers to current ways of "living" them. A balanced valuation of the physical reality between memory and the future. Heritage: enhancement, updating, its relationship with the environment, and new uses, especially in open situations, with large margins of uncertainty.

1. Understanding of the landscape and territory as architecture and facing the problems of the territorial scale: making explanatory cartographies of metropolitan landscapes; peripheral and/or suburban residence, large containers, centralities, mobility, intersections and new polarities, "parks" (technological, thematic, etc.); diagnosis, problems, and opportunities.
2. Criteria and tools for the design of territory and landscape and study of action models: environment, ecology, sustainability, environmental impact; contributions from other disciplines; mix of uses, transition areas; exemplary interventions, contemporary experiences.
3. Discovery of project sites in the dispersed city and exercise of the territory and landscape project on them: development and representation of improvement proposals.

Throughout the last century and the present, cities have grown in discontinuous parts over a territory endowed with access and services, and this discontinuity has more recently become fragmentation. The theoretical interpretation of the city and the urban phenomenon will be approached taking into account this historical process of disaggregation to which the traditional space has been subjected, from its original consideration as compact to the fragmentation that characterizes the reality of our current cities.

The need to imagine or anticipate the form of the elements to be built on a given territory leads us to search for and study examples or models in which to find methods, ways of working or solutions that have already been tried and tested. We will therefore consider the answers that some countries and cities have given to these urban planning problems throughout recent history, as well as some recognized masters of urban planning and architecture, in order to learn and advance from them.

From the ruralization of the city, we have moved on to the urbanization of the countryside, especially in the current context of the climate crisis and the local effects associated with it, which in the cities can be seen in the increase in temperatures and the decrease in rainfall. The territory can be understood today as a space in which interventions and projects are accumulating, whose continuous and superimposed materialization defines its most current plan. We will try to address these current phenomena of growth, urbanization, and suburbanization, in order to give them an adequate shape, especially with regard to urban edges, city-countryside contact spaces, and those places of opportunity for the approach of sustainable urbanism that makes cities more resilient. In this way, we will contribute from the subject workshop to the attenuation of the urban conflicts that are currently generated.

Content and theoretical development:

• Theme 1. Landscape and urban geography.
  • We will analyze the components of urban and territorial reality as broadly as possible, identifying homogeneous landscape units, natural corridors, and the characteristic features of the study area.
• Theme 2. Centralities
  • We will learn to define the places of urban concentration, whatever type they may be: historical centrality, commercial centrality, endowment centrality, landscape centrality, etc.
• Theme 3. Corridors, ecological connectivity and infrastructures
  • We will understand the main lines of the territory, infrastructural axes, sequences or historical narrative itineraries, landscape ecology, sustainability, etc.
• Theme 4. Peri-urban and metropolitan dimensions
  • We will approach the language, the problems and the palette of solutions specific to metropolitan or regional scales, we will work with the territorial dimension of urban planning.
• Topic 5. Mechanisms of Urban Transformation: Urban Regeneration, Urban Policies, and Urban Designs.
  • We will emphasize the concretization of our projects in policies that have a real impact on the urban or territorial fabrics: residential, peripheral, suburban, agricultural, industrial, etc.

The exposed agenda is organized in class through the methodology of lecture that will deepen on the contents of the subject, taught in the first half of the session of 4 hours per week, and with a second part of discussion around reference articles related to each topic and review of the applied content of the subject. Specifically, the dynamics of the course will be:

1. Theoretical session (1 hour)
   • These will be lessons of approximately one hour's duration, in which general arguments will be presented on the subject corresponding to that week. The lesson will be complemented with study material (books, articles, videos, etc.) so that the classroom explanation can be extended with the personal reflection of each student.
2. Collective discussion session (20 minutes)
   • Every two weeks, there will be a colloquium on what has been learned and studied from the readings and documents consulted, previously made available to the students by the faculty. Active participation during both sessions as well as attendance will be assessed in the evaluation. The reference material (bibliography, links, articles, etc.) will be made available to students through the course delegate and via telematics (email, PRADO platform).

The different works to be carried out during the course will be grouped in two Blocks:

1. Theoretical-Practical Block.

Students will carry out, according to the instructions of the teacher in charge of their group, works of reading and critical interpretation of some texts and reference projects throughout the course. These works will be presented in writing or orally for evaluation, or by writing a brief theoretical test on them.

2. Practical Block of Urban-Territorial Project

The project to be developed in the subject of Urban Planning 4 appears described in its Syllabus as a "territorial planning and urban project; the project of residential extensions; the organization of equipment and services; productive, industrial and tourist uses; landscape and undeveloped land; impact analysis".

This academic year will focus on understanding the multiscale relationships that the project must address and will place special emphasis on the incorporation of the time variable, urban biodiversity and compliance with the 2030 Urban Agenda. The project must always contain a representative quota of residential use and must be able to interpret the intermediate territories of metropolitan scales: urban edges, geographic interstices, industrial reconversions, new forms of inhabiting, recovery of ex-urban historic fabrics, infrastructural landscape, new commercial, sports or tourist models, fight against the local effects of climate change, etc.

The Formulation of the Urban-territorial Project, where you will find the scope of the study, the subject and its motivations, its programmatic hypotheses, etc., should be taken into account. The subject's Virtual Space also provides access to the project's starting information: basic cartographies, general management plans, historical orthophotographs, current flights, etc.

Seminars/Workshops

1. Seminar 1 (S1): Presentation of the Subject, the Project and formation of the Working Groups.
2. Seminar 2 (S2): Presentation of Phase 1 of the Project or Urban-Territorial Approach phase by the Groups.
3. Seminar 3 (S3): Presentation of the Final Phase of the Project by the Groups.

At the beginning of the course, a calendar-program will be presented with a detailed description of the different activities to be carried out. Collective visits and reconnaissance work of the cities or areas of the city under study will be organized.

• CORBOZ, Andrè, "Le territoire comme palimpseste." Diogène no. 121 (1983): 14–35.
• Bara, Rosa, Works and Writings 1970–2000, Asflor Editions.
• FONT, A. La explosión de la ciudad: transformaciones territoriales en las regiones urbanas de la Europa Méridional. Ministry of Housing, Barcelona, 2007.
• GANDELSONAS, M. X-urbanism: architecture and American cities. New York: Publisher, Princeton Architectural Press, 1999.
• MARTÍN RAMOS, A. (ed.). Lo urbano en 20 autores contemporáneos. UPC.
• McHarg, I.L., Designing with Nature. G. Gili.
• SOLÁ-MORALES i Rubio, Manuel. Of urban things. Barcelona: Gustavo Gili, 2008.
• Rivas Navarro, J.L.; Bravo Rodríguez, B.; Huertas Fernández, M. Cartografías interesantes: la investigación en la producción del imaginario del territorio. In: IV Jornadas Internacionales sobre Investigación en Arquitectura y Urbanismo, 4th International Meeting on Architectural and Urbanism Research: Proceedings, Valencia, 1-3 June. Valencia: General de Ediciones de Arquitectura, 2011. pp. 1–19. https://digibug.ugr.es/handle/10481/27610
• UR: urbanismo revista / Laboratorio de Urbanismo de la Escola Técnica Superior d'Arquitectura de Barcelona, U.P.C. (1985). Escola Tècnica Superior d'Arquitectura.

• GEDDES, P. Cities in Evolution. Routledge.
• GÓMEZ ORDÓÑEZ, José Luis, Juan L. Rivas Navarro, David Cabrera Manzano and Rafael Reinoso Bellido. A course on Urban Planning 2001-2002. Granada: Universidad de Granada and Diputación de Granada, 2004.
• PORTAS, N; DOMINGUES, A; CABRAL, J. Políticas Urbanas, Tendencias, estrategias e oportunidades. 2nd Ed, Fundacao Calouste Gulbenkia, Lisbon, Portugal, 2002.
• VIGANÓ, P. Territori della nuova modernitá. Il Piano territoriale di Lecce. Electa.
• FORMAN, R.T.T. Land Mosaics: The Ecology of Landscape and Regions. C.U.P.
• RUEDA-PALENZUELA, S. (2019). Ecosystemic Urbanism. Revista: Ciudad y Territorio. Estudios Territoriales. Vol. LI, No. 202. pp. 723-752.
• Spanish Urban Agenda https://www.aue.gob.es/

• Laboratori d'Urbanisme de Barcelona
• Laboratori d'Urbanisme de Barcelona. UR Revista
• DUyOT
• Revista Ciudades. Universidad de Valladolid
• Atlantic Cities
• Urban Design
• Guía para generar suelo urbano en ciudades intermedias: Lineamientos y criterios para la de gestión del territorio. Plataforma Urbana.
• https://morphocode.com/streetfight-janette-sadik-khan/
• https://www.gehlpeople.com/

• MD01. Lección magistral/expositiva 
• MD02. Sesiones de discusión y debate 
• MD03. Resolución de problemas y estudio de casos prácticos 
• MD05. Prácticas de campo 
• MD07. Seminarios 
• MD10. Realización de trabajos en grupo 
• MD11. Realización de trabajos individuales 

The continuous evaluation of the students will be based on the following criteria:

• EV-C1: Verification of the mastery of the contents, theoretical and practical, and critical elaboration of the same.
• EV-C2: Evaluation of the theoretical and practical work, carried out individually or in teams, taking into account the presentation, writing and clarity of ideas, graphics, structure and scientific level, creativity, justification of what is argued, capacity and richness of the criticism made, and updating of the bibliography consulted.
• EV-C3: Degree of involvement and attitude of students in their participation in consultations, presentations, and debates, as well as in the preparation of individual or team work and in the sharing sessions.
• EV-C4: Degree of Attendance and Participation in the classroom Workshops, seminars, conferences, tutorials, and group sessions.

Previously, it should be clarified that, according to the criteria selected by the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, it is required that the student follow the course in person. Of the attendance controls carried out throughout the course, the student must have a minimum attendance-participation of 80%. Failure to reach this minimum attendance requirement will result in a grade of Not Presented in the ordinary convocation. Once this requirement is fulfilled, the evaluation of the course will be continued through the presentation of work and tests throughout the course. This evaluation will follow the regulations for the evaluation and grading of students at the UGR.

The evaluation instruments may be:

• EV-I1: Written tests: essay, short answer, objective.
• EV-I2: Oral tests: exposition of work (individual or in groups), interviews, debates.
• EV-I3: Graphic, visual or plastic tests (drawings, videos, photo-essays, models, etc.), brief or of extensive development, with descriptive, analytical, and/or projective answers.
• EV-I4: Other works, reports, studies, memoirs...

The CONTINUOUS EVALUATION will be carried out according to the following criteria:

• The student must have a minimum attendance- rate of 80% (since his/her effective enrollment). Failure to reach this minimum attendance- requirement will result in a grade of Not Presented in the ordinary convocation.
• In order to pass the course, each of the work blocks must be submitted and approved with a minimum grade of 5.
• In order to be evaluated, the assignments must be handed in on the date and at the place indicated and announced in due time. In the case of not reaching 50% of the weighting of the final grade, the student will obtain a grade of Not Presented in the Ordinary Call.
• If any of the work blocks have not been handed in, the maximum final grade will be 4.
• The course can be passed in Continuous Evaluation during the academic period.
• In the case of not passing the course in Continuous Evaluation, as long as all the assignments have been handed in on time, the student will be able to re-submit and present improved assignments to the final exam of the Ordinary Examination. It will also be possible to improve the works already approved.
• After the publication of the final grades, the revision period of the evaluation and/or exams will be established.

The Work Blocks will have the following weighting in the final grade:

• 10%: attendance and participation.
• 20%: theoretical block.
• 70%: Practical Block on Urban Project

The extraordinary evaluation will be carried out according to the following criteria:

• To pass, the course must be delivered and passed with a minimum grade of 5 in each of the blocks of work raised previously in the section of continuous evaluation.
• The works will be delivered on the date of examination designated by the Center. In the event of not reaching 50% of the weighting of the final grade with the works delivered, a grade of Not Presented will be obtained in the final extraordinary exam.
• If any of the work blocks have not been handed in, the maximum final grade will be 4.
• After the publication of the final grades, the deadline for revision of the evaluation and/or exams will be established.

The Work Blocks will have the following weighting in the final grade:

• 10%: attendance and participation.
• 20%: theoretical block.
• 70%: Practical Block on Urban Design.

In accordance with the "regulations of evaluation and grading of students of the University of Granada," "single final evaluation" is understood as that which is carried out in a single academic act, and which may include the necessary tests to certify that the student has acquired all the competencies described in this teaching guide.

In order to take advantage of the single final evaluation, the student, in the first two weeks of the course, will request it in writing to the director of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, complying in any case with the official regulations to that effect.

The single final evaluation will be carried out according to the following criteria:

• In order to pass the course, each of the work blocks, raised previously in the continuous evaluation section, must be delivered and passed with a minimum grade of 5.
• The works will be delivered on the date of examination designated by the Center. In the event of not reaching 50% of the weighting of the final grade with the works handed in, a grade of Not Presented will be obtained in the single final exam.
• If any of the work blocks have not been handed in, the maximum final grade will be 4.
• After the publication of the final grades, the deadline for revision of the evaluation and/or exams will be established.