Inclusive and Sustainable Cities

Delft University of Technology via edX Professional Certificate

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Provider

edX Professional Certificate
Pricing

$417.00
Languages

English
Certificate

Certificate Available
Duration & workload

19 weeks, 3-4 hours a week

Found in

Overview

Learn about today’s urban challenges and how architecture and urban design can be used to tackle inequality and socio-economic segregation, and to promote more inclusive and sustainable cities.

By 2050, an additional two billion people will live in the cities of the world. If the current approach to urbanization does not change, most of these people will live in sub-standard conditions, lacking opportunities for income generation, occupying inadequate housing and without sustainable livelihoods. How can this gloomy scenario be avoided?

Urban design and architecture can contribute with new methods and approaches to promote the construction of more inclusive and sustainable cities.

In this program you will take part in a cross-disciplinary conversation that looks into the state of cities in the Global North and Global South. We will discuss the main challenges that urban communities worldwide are facing and examine which methods and approaches can be implemented to promote the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in particular SDG 11: “Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”.

This program consists of three courses. The introductory course will help you identify what are the main urban challenges in your local environment and debate possible innovative solutions for it. The other two courses deal in greater depth with two fundamental challenges related to SDG 11: affordable housing and inequality.

In each course, you will engage in a series of modules that explore a combination of innovative research with first-hand empirical material collected in cities and urban areas visited by the course team. These modules will help you grasp how housing and urban design offer tools and instruments to tackle one of the world’s main challenges: sustainable urbanization for a more sustainable and resilient urban future.

Currently ranked as the World #2 School of Architecture (QS World University Rankings 2020), the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment at TU Delft has well-merited its reputation as a world leader in design pedagogy and innovation. This program brings together TU Delft’s expert researchers and instructors who have been exploring the relationship between design and societal challenges from different planning and design perspectives. Their insights offer learners new strategies to rethink the development of the cities and houses of the future.

Syllabus

Courses under this program:
Course 1: Rethink the City: New approaches to Global and Local Urban Challenges

How do you plan future cities? Explore alternative theories and innovative solutions for urban challenges in the global south.

Course 2: Global Housing Design

Learn about the key design strategies required to develop adequate housing and inclusive dwelling environments for sustainable urban development.

Course 3: Building Inclusive Cities: Tackling Urban Inequality and Segregation

Discover how urban design can help tackle inequality and socio-economic segregation in cities. Learn how to use analytical tools to measure these two phenomena and make urban design part of the solution.

Courses

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6 weeks, 3-4 hours a week, 3-4 hours a week
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Learn about today's urban challenges focusing on developing countries, referred to as the Global South. We will debate the benefits associated with three different themes, going beyond traditional urban strategies and policies:
1. Spatial justice
Having fair, inclusive and healthy urban contexts is one of the greatest challenges of cities in emerging economies.
2. Housing Provision and Management
Increasing demand in the Global South calls for alternative approaches in housing provision and management.
3. Sustainable Urban Transitions
In order to transition from our current (unsustainable) system towards a fair and sustainable future we need to pay attention to the social, economic, and cultural context.

In the course, we will address questions such as:
- Is the 'just city' framework applicable to cities with extreme socio-economic inequality?
- Can community-led housing initiatives provide effective solutions for households in need?
- How can the transition towards an environmentally sustainable future also be socially just?
In this architecture and urban planning course, academic urban planning expertise from TU Delft is used to formulate possible answers to these questions, and is applied in a range of challenging case studies from Latin America, MENA region, Sub-Saharan Africa, South-East Asia, , among others. This course offers you a new perspective to understand and analyse the urban challenges of the Global South.

Through a combination of short theoretical lessons, presentation of case studies, testimonies from practitioners and practical assignments you will also learn how to develop a critical perspective about your own urban environment and how to translate this knowledge into analytical tools and innovative urban solutions.
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7 weeks, 4-5 hours a week, 4-5 hours a week
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Urban design, inequality and segregation are strongly connected.

Cities around the world, from the Global South to the Global North, are facing a rise in inequality and socio-economic segregation. The wealthy are increasingly concentrating in the most attractive urban areas and poverty is spreading to the suburbs. Rising levels of segregation have major consequences for the social sustainability of cities and leads to unequal life opportunities depending on where in the city you live.

In this course, aimed at a broad range of professionals, from urban planners and architects to geographers, you will learn what the main drivers and indicators of urban inequality and segregation are, using examples from cities from all over the world. You will learn how segregation is measured, how to interpret the results of the analyses of segregation and how to relate these insights to urban design. With this knowledge, you will be able to analyze how these issues may be affecting your local environment.

Additionally, we will present some historical examples of how urban design has played a role shaping spatial inequality and segregation in a selection of case study cities. This will help you to get a better understanding of how urban design can reduce spatial inequality and segregation.

The course is taught by the editors of the new SpringerOpen book “Urban socio-economic segregation and income inequality. A global perspective” and senior experts from the Urban Design section of TU Delft, which is ranked number 2 in the QS World University Rankings in the field of Architecture.
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6 weeks, 4-5 hours a week, 4-5 hours a week
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Building adequate housing is a pressing issue worldwide. With close to a billion people currently living in slums, accommodating a growing population, and improving dwelling conditions is a critical issue for society.

This challenge cannot be solved with a one-size-fits-all approach. Every city, region and country demand their own housing models and prototypes. That’s why housing design needs to negotiate many aspects simultaneously to achieve sustainable urban environments and inclusive dwelling communities.

This course uncovers how social, economic and environmental factors are interrelated in the design of housing settlements. For this, the course dives into three key aspects that anyone involved in housing design should take into consideration: time, environment, and community. Each of these aspects will be examined through a specific design approach, respectively:
- Incrementality : how dwelling environments should be able to accommodate growth and change through time.
- Typology Mix : how design can be responsive to different patterns of inhabitation, aspirations and cultural backgrounds, creating inclusive dwelling environments.
- Clustering : what methods and strategies can shape the association of dwelling units in order to create meaningful communities.
In this course, each of these themes will be discussed in detail and exemplified by a new analytical approach to award-winning housing projects developed in different geopolitical contexts.

While each of these themes will examine aspects related to the design decision-making process, the course aims at addressing concerns that go beyond the design disciplines. Hence, regardless of background or level of expertise, this course will introduce learners to the core issues and challenges of global housing design, using examples from different regions.

This course has been developed by TU Delft’s Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment in collaboration with the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC). It offers a unique combination of videos, documentation of key case studies, animations, and feedback sessions. We will discuss options for affordable housing design, with a particular focus on low- and middle-income countries. We will take you through the intricacies of designing “housing for the large number”, as well as inspire you to understand your own context and the housing challenges you might be facing.

Taught by

Dominic Stead, Roberto Rocco, Darinka Czischke Ljubetic, Luz Maria Vergara d’Alençon, Igor Pessoa, Dick Van Gameren, Nelson Mota, Frederique Van Andel, Maarten van Ham, Rūta Ubarevičienė, Leo van den Burg and Rohan Varma