Faculty of Engineering & the Built Environment
CPD Programme, Engineering Faculty, Menzies Building, Upper Campus, University of Cape Town
Private Bag X3, Rondebosch, 7701
Tel: ++27 (0)21 6505793; Fax: ++27 (0)21 6502669; email: ; web: www.cpd.uct.ac.za
/ Continuing Professional Development ProgrammeFaculty of Engineering & the Built Environment
Placing Design central to Urban Decision Making
Objectives
Despite political calls for radical changes to South African towns and cities, the performance of these settlements, as containers of life, remains very poor. Cities in South Africa have been rated, in a recent United Nations publication, as the most inefficient and inequitable in the world and the quality of the public spatial environment, of crucial importance to poor people who conduct many of their daily activities in these spaces, remains ubiquitously poor.
A major contributing cause of this situation is that there appears to be no shared agreement amongst professionals concerned with the built environment about the nature of the urban problem or about a vision of what it is they should collectively be seeking to achieve. In particular there appears to be little concern about qualitative urban environmental issues.
This short course seeks to provide a forum for intensive analysis of, and debate about these issues. It is aimed at all built environment professionals ─ engineers, urban planners, urban designers, architects, landscape architects and environmental and heritage practitioners. It is a course that has been offered for a number of years now, has been well attended and appears to have been well received.
Course Content
The course will include:
• Critiques of the South African city, with a focus on metropolitan Cape Town
• A review of early and pre-modern ideas and traditions about settlement structure and form
• Modernism and the development of City Planning as “Functionalism”
• The re-introduction of Urban Design in the 1950s in reaction to Functionalist Modernism and to disciplinary specialisms that have emerged
• An outline of present day urban design theory and practice: “Schools of Thought”
• Connection to issues in the Built Environment, particularly in developing contexts, mainly through the presentation and discussion of relevant cases and projects, spanning most of the professions involved
Course Lecturers
The convenor of the course, Prof. Fabio Todeschini, is an architect, city planner and urban designer, an academic and a practitioner. Other lecturers will include: Profs. David Dewar and Julian Cooke, both prominent academics and built environment professionals, Mr. Piet Louw, Ms. Barbara Southworth, A/Prof. Marianne Vanderschuren and Ms. Roberta Gould-Pratt, who are all active professionals in settlement-making in South Africa. The intention, however, is to make the course as interactive as possible.
Course Information
Who should attend?
The course will benefit all who are involved in the built environment. This includes engineers, land surveyors, architects, landscape architects, urban planners, urban designers, heritage and environmental practitioners. The course is widely applicable and designed to satisfy the multi-disciplinary nature of urban development and urban growth management.
Format
The course will comprise seven three-hour sessions and will meet twice a week.
Cost
The fee for the total 21-hour course will be R 5200.00. Discounts for staff and students of UCT, and students of other tertiary education institutes are available under certain circumstances.
Certificates
A certificate of attendance will be awarded to all course members who attend a minimum of 5 of the seven sessions.
CPD Credit Requirements
The course is registered with the Engineering Council of South Africa and the Cape Institute for Architecture and is accredited for the award of CPD points, which are now required for continuing professional registration. The ECSA course code is UCTUDM12
Applications and cancellations
In order to ensure a place on the course applicants should complete and return a signed registration form to the course administrators: Heidi Tait or Sandra Jemaar:
Confirmation of acceptance will be sent on receipt of an application form.
Payment is due one week before the start of a course.
Cancellations must be received one week before the start of a course, or the full course fee will be charged
Venue
Seminar Room, Chemical Engineering Building, Upper Campus, University of Cape Town.
Date and Time
17h00 – 20h00
Tuesday 21 August
Thursday 23 August
Tuesday 28 August
Thursday 30 August
Tuesday 4 September
Thursday 6 September
Tuesday 11 September
Registration
16h30, 21 August, just before the first lecture
Foyer Chemical Engineering Building
Corner Ring Rd and South Lane
Upper Campus
University of Cape Town
Lecture Programme and Course Content
Twice weekly starting on Tuesday 21 August, 5:00 to 8:00pm, as noted below session by session (7 Sessions over 3½ weeks, comprising a total of 21 hours).
Tuesday 21 August
Session 1: Introduction
Double lecture, discussion. Lecturer: Todeschini
· Lecture: a critique of the South African City, with a focus on Cape Town; the inclusive re-introduction of design at the centre of the Built Environment disciplines; the values and the driving principles of practice; all the disciplines are vital but compromise is necessary across disciplines in the interest of the totality
· The overall purpose, structure and content of the course
· Housekeeping, Participants and Discussion of references relied on in the course
Thursday 23 August
Session 2: Ideas, Theories and Practice I
Double lecture, discussion. Lecturer: Todeschini
· Early and pre-modern ideas and traditions about settlement structure and form
· Modernism and the development of City Planning as “Functionalism”
· The re-introduction of Urban Design in the 1950s in reaction to Functionalist Modernism and disciplinary specialisms
Tuesday 28 August
Session 3: Ideas, Theories and Practice II
Two lectures, discussion. Lecturers: Todeschini, Gould-Pratt
· An outline of present day urban design theory and practice “Schools of Thought”
· Connection to issues in the Built Environment, particularly in developing contexts, mainly through the presentation and discussion of relevant cases and projects.
Thursday 30 August
Session 4: Ideas, Theories and Practice III
Two lectures, discussion. Lecturers: Dewar, Louw
· Connection to issues in the Built Environment, particularly in developing contexts, mainly through the presentation and discussion of relevant cases and projects.
Tuesday 4 September
Session 5: Ideas, Theories and Practice IV
Two lectures, discussion. Lecturers: Cooke, Southworth
· Connection to issues in the Built Environment, particularly in developing contexts, mainly through the presentation and discussion of relevant cases and projects.
Thursday 6 September
Session 6: Theories and Practice V
· Two lectures, discussion. Lecturers: Vanderschuren, Todeschini
· Connection to issues in the Built Environment, particularly in developing contexts, mainly through the presentation and discussion of relevant cases and projects.
Tuesday 11 September
Session 7: Issues and Implications
Concise Position Statements, panel discussions. Panelists: Cooke, Dewar, Louw, Vanderschuren, Gould-Pratt, Southworth, Todeschini
· Implications for practice and education
· Implications for the various disciplines in the Built Environment
CPD Programme, Engineering Faculty, Menzies Building, Upper Campus, University of Cape Town
Private Bag X3, Rondebosch, 7701
Tel: ++27 (0)21 6505793; Fax: ++27 (0)21 6502669; email: ; web: www.cpd.uct.ac.za