Density and Metropolis

Presentation

Urban planners and architects are used to focus on the built environment, on what is above ground, as this is probably the most effective viewpoint when aiming to create liveable areas. At the same time cities are increasingly being planned by (public) administrations or (private) corporations, ultimately collecting ever more data in order to have a ‘smart’ response on issues such as waste water treatment, air quality, use, transportation, security, and so on.

The latent absence of architects from the process risks leading to increasingly technocratic responses in city planning. To reverse this, we must first understand the tools, parameters, and languages of today's mode of operation. Therefor the course and its students are seeking to simulate both densification and de-densification. Themes that are intertwined with critical questions about our future as an ecological endeavour.

The course consolidated an informal collaboration with the MSc Space Syntax of The Bartlett School of Architecture (Dr Tasos Varoudis) and several well established international architectural and urban planning offices in London, including SOM, Norman Foster, Zaha Hadid, 6A, Grimshaw, and others, where an annual excursion is planned.