Assignments

Journal

Document your own thoughts, comments, and challenges on the readings and class material. The journal may be of any length or medium, but should discuss at least two readings/topics.

Assignment 1

Urban Change: Trace the evolution of one place in Boston through time, and predict its future.

Assignment 2

Urban Plans: Evaluate an urban design intervention of your choice, anywhere in the world, to answer the question: Was this a good plan?

Due: Class 16

Cities evolve incrementally as the result of many individual public and private actions. These actions are shaped by macro-forces, and each piece of the environment when built becomes an important determinant of the next. Over time, some forces, such as climate, come to exert a pervasive and continuing influence on the city’s form. Other forces, such as fires or public “slum clearance programs” are short-lived but result in drastic changes at specific locations. Some forces, like transportation, are essential to urban life. Others, such as the drive to express a civic vision in monuments and public spaces, seems more capricious but nonetheless can have powerful consequences.

This assignment addresses the underlying urban dynamics that are causing a city to change. It also seeks to develop or sharpen your skills of observation, encouraging you to make inferences from the evidence of the physical environment and to test these through interviews and research.

Directions

Choose a place within the Boston metropolitan area which has undergone significant physical change through its history, particularly over the past 10-20 years. The area should be larger than a single building or site, and should involve multiple ownership (an institution is not appropriate). A block of the inner city would be appropriate, or a section of the waterfront, or a two-to-five acre suburban site. The changes it has undergone might be positive or negative, but must be observable. And choose an area that interests you a great deal, sinc ethe job of digging up information on it will undoubtedly prove time consuming and difficult.
Document the evolution of your area through time. You may wish to develop a set of “snapshots” of the area at key points in time during which significant changes occured – not necessarily intervals of equal duration. Documentation should include both illustrations (maps, sketches, photos, or other media) of the physical environment showing patterns of development, architectural typologies, etc., as well as descriptions and data about the evolving functions of the place and its role in society.
Discuss the key forces which resulted in physical and functional change. These forces may include, for example, changes in the economic function of the place, social structure, introduction of new public infrastructure, changes in the rules of development, or application of a particular vision of the city in your area of study. Try to describe the motivation behind these forces and the particular effects in your area.
Predict the future of your area. Evaluate the forces for change that are now active. Consider if these are a consequence of the historical change of events that have effected this place in the city, or whether a whole new set of forces and interactions are now at play. Interviews of residents, business owners, and others with a stake in the area would be a good way of supplementing written data. Observations of building conditions, recent construction or other signs of change would also be helpful. Based upon your analysis, try to predict what changes will be likely to occur at this location over the next 20 years.

Product

Document your findings in a brief paper, no more than 15-20 pages in length, including any data and illustrations you may wish to include. Be sure to include a one-page summary of your conclusions up front. The assignment should be done individually.

To help you get started, you should obtain copies of the following:

Whitehill, Walter Muir. Boston: A Topographical History. Belknap Press, 2000. ISBN: 9780674002685.
Campbell, Robert, and Peter Vanderwarker. Cityscapes of Boston: An American City Through Time. Houghton Mifflin, 1992. ISBN: 9780395581193.
Seasholes, Nancy S. Gaining Ground: A History of Landmaking in Boston. MIT Press, 2003. ISBN: 9780262194945.
Haglund, Karl. Inventing the Charles River. MIT Press, 2003. ISBN: 9780262083072.

We will discuss the assignment in class when you may be asked to make a brief presentation of your findings.

Due: Class 31

The purpose of this exercise is to explore the nature of plans and their impact on the form and function of cities. We are interested in the motivations for creating plans, the processes by which they are prepared, the languages of urban design which underlay them, and the long-term effects of plans – or lack thereof – on the city. Having considered these issues, you are asked to answer the question: What makes a good plan?

Directions

Choose a plan for an area in a city that interests you. The plan may be for the area of Boston that you studied in Assignment 1, or for a district in any other city. The plan you focus on may be relatively recent or may have been created several decades ago. It should have been developed long enough ago so that the results can be observed, however. Choose a planthat proposes changes in physical form as well as changes in activies or policies to be applied in the area. Finally, choose a plan for which you can speak with one or more of the actors who created it, or about which enough has been written so that it is possible to draw conclusions.
Describe the nature of the plan and the reasons why it was prepared. What problems or issues was the plan intended to address? Who were the constituents for the plan?
Discuss the process used to develop the plan. Under whose authority was the plan prepared and carried out? Were the constituents involved and to what degree was their involvement reflected in the plan?
What model(s) of design and development underlay the plan? This may be one of the models we will discuss in class or another precedent that you feel had a strong influence on the plan. Was the language appropriate to the problem?
Was the plan effective? In making this assessment, look for long-term changes in the district that were motivated by the plan. These may be changes in form, activities or social composition, but they may also be more subtle changes in attitudes or perceptions about a place, which have long-term impacts. How well did the plan anticipate and affect the future?
Finally, answer the question: “Is this a good plan?” Be sure to discuss explicity your criteria for making this judgment.

Be prepared to identify in class the plan you will be assessing by Class 21. Your final paper should not exceed 12-15 pages, including text and any graphics you may wish to include.

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Introduction to Urban Design and Development