Design and the City

THIS COURSE IS FULL.

A course in urban studies, “Design and the City” introduces students to the analysis of the city and to its relation to design. By doing this, the course aims at examining design outside the conventional associations to “produced goods” or “built environment”.

The course will explore how design influences the city, its planning, and the life of its inhabitants. We will introduce some major theoretical points about creative industries, art, economy, and urban space as well as examine some ad hoc cases, in relation to the City of Helsinki, the Finnish capital, that has recently been chosen as World’s Design Capital for 2012. Class projects encourage students to think critically about the modes and functions of design in the urban context.

The main themes of the course are:
1) Can urban planning be understood as a form of design? What are its main features? What do we understand with the term “designscape”?
2) How do design products communicate certain places and link themselves to certain cities? Where is the “place” in the “product”? Why do certain creative industries originate in certain places?
3) How can design influence or shape the life of city inhabitants? How can the design become sustainable and inclusive?

The course focuses primarily on the Helsinki Metropolitan Area. The similarities and differences with other European and extra-European cities will also be examined together with the “flow” of urban images between “peripheries” and “centres”.

The key lecturers come from the multidisciplinary Network of the Professors of Urban Studies. Other lecturers include urban experts from Finnish and international universities as well as artists and members of various other institutions. Within the framework of the Network for Urban Studies, the course is organized by the University of Helsinki and the Aalto University.

This course is designed for Master's degree students of sociology, geography, cultural studies, architecture, urban planning, environmental studies, politics, or economics.

The course includes about 14 lectures (90 minutes each), workshops, excursions as well as several hours of individual and group work.

The main tasks of the course are:
- Pre-course assignment (to be completed before the course)
- Individual in-course assignments (readings + question + lecture diary + picture)
- Active participation
- Final group presentation
- Final individual paper

Please direct any questions concerning the content of this course to the coordinator, Mr. Giacomo Bottà, giacomo.botta(@)helsinki.fi. Any inquiries on the general arrangements (accommodation, scholarship, etc.) should be addressed to Helsinki Summer School at summer-school@helsinki.fi.