Mapping Urbanism

Mapping Urbanism, an interdisciplinary course, comprises urban design,information design, history, and theory. Cities from across the globe that exemplifyvarious typologies – the global city (New York and Paris), the shrinkingcity (Detroit and Manchester, England), the growing city (Las Vegas,Doha) and the megalopolis (the U.S.A.’s Northeast Corridor and the PearlRiver Delta, China) – are examined through an interdisciplinary framework.The aim of the course is two-fold: first, to develop an appreciation for diversehistories, cultures and the built environment and second, to educatestudents to become engaged citizens of the world, reflective and informedabout the complex issues of urbanism. The course strives to achieve thisby cultivating critical thinking through an analytical, problem solving, andinterdisciplinary approach.For the past five years, this upper level elective course has been offeredat Carnegie Mellon’s Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Doha, Qatar campuses.On both campuses, students of many disciplines and backgrounds haveexchanged intercultural communication and knowledge of the social, economicand political influences on the built environment. Urbanism is examinedthrough readings and written responses from books such as Learningfrom Las Vegas and Al Manakh; information design is studied through thelens of Edward Tufte and Richard Saul Wurman; and graphic and interactivewebsites are introduced from the likes of Brian McGrath and Ben Fry.Each specific city is then examined as a case study, through documentationand analysis of data, asking relevant questions and drawing comparativeconclusions, while communicating the results graphically, in a dynamic andaccessible manner.The complex issues of urbanism provide a rich backdrop to teach skills incritical thinking and representation. Issues examined include ethnic andeconomic diversification, the merits and pitfalls of increasingly globalizedcities and the relationships between urbanization and ecology. However, thefocus tends to change based on the locale and student groups. For example,in Pittsburgh, students are keen to examine issues of urban developmentand environmental sustainability, while in Doha, students expand the notionto include cultural sustainability as well.Analog and digital mapping skills go hand in hand, and build upon each otherover the course of the semester, through workshops that provide softwareinstruction with the Adobe Suite and GIS, and introduce the fundamentalsof processing. Conceptual mappings, focused on the “home” city, assist inthe initial exploration of urbanism through the documentation of perceptualand sensory personal observations. Traditional mapping techniques suchas Nolli maps and Lynchian diagrams provide tools for understanding thefundamentals of a city’s structure. The correlation of GIS with census datayields comparative demographic information. Mobile computing, pairedwith Google Maps, as well as diverse web-applications, increasingly yieldsinnovative and informative visualizations.Mapping Urbanism advances students’ knowledge of urgent global challengesand cultivates a wide array of critical written, verbal and graphicskills. These multiple means of approach reinforce and complement an architecturaleducation. Whether in Pittsburgh or in Doha, students acquirenew ways of seeing and portraying the city.

Volume Editors
Martha Thorne & Xavier Costa

ISBN
978-0-935502-83-1