SAMPLE COURSE SYLLABI Willow Lung Amam Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning University of California, Berkeley [email protected] Contents SOCIAL NEEDS AND PRACTICES IN THE LANDSCAPE: DESIGNING FOR DIVERSITY Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning, Spring 2011 University of California, Berkeley LANDSCAPES AS SACRED PLACE Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning, Spring 2010 University of California, Berkeley LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE AND ENVIRONMENTAL PLANNING COLLOQIUM Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning, Fall 2009 University of California, Berkeley CULTURAL LANDSCAPES, 1945 TO PRESENT Cross-listed in Geography, Environmental Design and American Studies, Spring 2009 University of California, Berkeley University of California, Berkeley LD ARCH 140 College of Environmental Design Spring 2011 Social Needs and Practices in the Landscape: Designing for Difference Instructor: Willow Lung Amam [email protected] Office Hours: By appointment only Location TBD Class Information: 3 units; CCN# 48550 class website on bSpace Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11am – 12:30pm Room #315C Wurster In a world in which people and social practices and processes interact and intermix with increasing rapidity and fluidity, designers are ever more challenged to understand how people perceive, experience, make meaning in, and identify with the places and spaces around them. From high- style urban squares to parking plazas, community centers to coffee shops, upscale shopping malls to night markets, suburban single-family homes to downtown artist lofts – designing in a complex world, requires and equally complex set of analytical tools to make sense of the various uses and users of urban spaces. LA 140 remixes the venerable traditions of social factors analysis to investigate questions about who and what we design for and the norms we apply to design. The course moves towards user- centered approaches that honor the needs, preferences, meanings, experiences, identities, ideas, ideals, and various forms of knowledge that people bring to their everyday life spaces. At the same time, it casts a critical lens on the ways in which larger cultural, political, and economic processes structure people’s understanding of and access to various arenas in the urban landscape. Prerequisites: None. Open to all students in the college (undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral). Satisfies LAEP social factors requirement. Objectives: • Evaluate traditional social factors approaches in light of recent social science and urban theories • Analyze how changing demographics and identity politics influence design practice • Understand how diverse spatial practices and preferences impact the design of everyday spaces • Explore multiple methodologies for investigating user wants and needs. • Understand how cultural, economic, and political processes influence the users of, relations within, and the design of urban space • Question personal and professional design norms and the ethical implications of designing for difference 1 University of California, Berkeley LD ARCH 140 College of Environmental Design Spring 2011 Class Correspondence: Throughout the semester I will periodically send e-mails to the class. You are responsible for checking your e-mail and for any content of the e-mails that I send out. These emails will be sent through b-space, so please make sure your information is up-to-date. Assignments & Grading: Participation: 30% Reading summaries / discussion: 10% Design Examples: 10% Open City Manifesto: 20% Design Evaluation and Critique (Final Project): 30% Attendance/Participation: Because this is primarily a discussion course, attendance and participation in the course is very important. Please be on time to class. Absences or repeatedly coming late to class will result in lowered participation grades. I recognize that not all students participate in the same way. The participation grade for this course is therefore broadly defined. Students will be considered to be actively engaging if they: • Attend class on time. • Ask questions or engage in discussion. • Display engagement through active listening. • Attend office hours to discuss issues or questions. • Demonstrate thoughtful engagement with lecture and assigned materials. Reading summaries and group discussions: For each class period, a student(s) will prepare a one to two page summary of the various articles, main points, key themes, and some questions that come out of the readings. Students should make copies of the summary for all students in the class. The student(s) will give a short 5-minute presentation of their summary and analysis at the beginning of the class and will help to lead the class discussion. Student sign up sheets will be passed around during the second class. Designing the Open City: For the class on April 21st, students should bring in at least one example of a professionally designed or vernacular space that they consider to be well suited for multiple social uses and users. These examples may be at any scale and from any part of the world. For instance, you may bring in pictures from your personal home or work space, a roadside memorial, a park bench, a neighborhood or even an entire city – try to bring in provocative images that give us a sense about the qualities of space and users. If these are digital images, please bring them on a thumb drive so that we can load them on my computer before class. Be prepared to discuss the space designer(s) (professional or otherwise), what uses and users the space accommodates, whether it is contested space, and the ways in which the design of the space accommodates the needs of its various user groups. In other words, what features of the space contribute to its qualities of “open”, “flexible” or “inclusive” design? Open City Manifesto: This exercise is a chance for you to synthesize what the materials in this class have meant to you in terms of your own design and planning practice, research, personal and professional life. Some questions you may want to consider include: How will you apply the 2 University of California, Berkeley LD ARCH 140 College of Environmental Design Spring 2011 lessons you’ve learned throughout the semester in your professional practice? How might you create more a open city or user-friendly spaces in your own work? How will core course themes of social justice and difference impact where and how you practice? How will you deal with user conflicts and contests over space? Your manifesto may be done in any way you like - written, drawn, or, recorded – using any number of media. The point is that it be something that is meaningful to you and hopefully, will be something that you can refer back to in your own design/planning practice, research, or other work in the future. Be prepared to give a 5 – 10 minute presentation in class about your manifesto on April 26th and turn your manifestos. Design Assessment and Critique: The final project aims to find ways to assess different users, uses, and place values and meanings and how to incorporate these various perspectives in the design of urban space. Your final presentation will be about a particular place that you select and study at length during the course of the semester. This space can be a place that either you are familiar with or is new to you, but must be reasonably accessible for you to visit on a regular basis. Your goal as a design researcher is to assess the space from the perspective of its different user groups and to critically evaluate the site’s design. This entails identifying the sites’ various user groups and their uses, meanings, preferences for, ideas about the space. To put the space in context, you should investigate relevant information about the site’s historical, cultural, political, and economic processes that impact the spaces’ design and use for both users and non-users. You should use a variety of methods discussed during the course of the semester, including, but not limited to: 1) observation (both people and place); 2) ethnography and personal interviews; 3) histories / archives; 4) census data analysis / GIS mapping; and 5) visualization and mapping. Your presentation should describe the space, its users, uses, and the various meanings ascribed to the place. Try to think both spatially and temporally about the users and non-users. When is it used (times of day, days of the week, and on special occasions)? By whom and for what purpose? Who is not using the space and why? Are there conflicts over the use of space? What factors (design, social, or otherwise) contribute to these conflicts? Which areas are most/least popular and why? Finally, if you were to redesign the site to better accommodate a particular user group(s) that you define (existing users, future users, or non-users of the site), what changes to the site design (which can include both physical design and policy recommendations) would your recommend? Proposals for the project topic are due in class on February 10th. Proposals should include a description of the place that you are studying and your main research question(s). Also, what is intriguing or interesting about the space and what do you hope to accomplish by studying it? On March 17th, the methods portion of your proposal is due, which should include a description of the methods that you propose in your project. These may not be the actual methods that you end up using, as when you spend more time in the field, you may discover that there are other more appropriate methods that you wish to employ. While we will explore a variety of methods in class that you can apply to the study of your site, students are also encouraged to experiment with different methodologies that they find particularly useful. Final presentations will occur on Thursday, May 12th. Presentations may be in the form of design boards, power point presentations, or any other visual format that you feel is appropriate. Presentations should include descriptions of the research question, space and its users, history/context, methods, research 3 University of California, Berkeley LD ARCH 140 College of Environmental Design Spring 2011 findings and design implications.