Sustainable Urban Development

In this course, students will be introduced to sustainable urban development, including key challenges and policies. The course will provide a general introduction to the historical development of human settlements and the morphology of the cities and territories at different scales, in the Global South and North. On that basis, the course will introduce the fundaments of the different phases of the planning process: analysis, strategy, masterplan and actions. Moreover, the course will introduce some basic concepts as system thinking and participatory planning.

At the end of this course, the student is expected to know about:

• The evolution of the planning practice and sustainable urban development.
• The urban system and the urban morphology.
• The planning process: analysis, strategy, masterplan and actions.

At the end of this course, the student is expected to be able to:

• Analyse a city and its territory
• Analyse and develop a planning process: analysis, strategy, masterplan and actions
• Apply the principles of sustainable development to urban systems
• Use a system thinking approach in analysing and planning sustainable urban development

At the end of this course, the student is expected to be able to:

• Analyse and interpret urban data and information critically
• Analyse complex urban and territorial sustainability issues, including: physical, social, economic and environmental dimensions.
• Propose solutions to complex urban and territorial sustainability issues, including: physical, social, economic and environmental dimensions.

Teaching will consists of following elements: 

• Supervised and unsupervised exercises
• Theoretical lectures
• Home assignments
• Report writing which will be completed before the exam