Innovation in urban design education

How can we incorporate into our educational system the emerging technologies, new processes and new habits of society to improve public motivation, implication, and satisfaction in urban decision-making processes? New technology implementations in the teaching field largely extend to all types of levels and educational frameworks. However, these innovations require approval validation and evaluation by the final users. The premise is that the technology used in Virtual Reality (VR), is familiar to the Architecture students, which preview to work on specific parameters and outcome, and on the contrary, citizens with a profile not related to the field get more excited and perceive the technology as a more efficient tool. To prove this, we use a quantitative method to evaluate the satisfaction of citizens related and not related to the Architecture field. Using an interactive visualization process in a real environment, we obtained adequate feedback that allowed the optimization of this type of experiment in future iterations. The results show that the degree of satisfaction when using an advanced visualization technology was satisfactory with a differentiation between user’s profilesPeer ReviewedPreprin

Towards Sustainable Cities

Purpose – Cities drive urban, social and economic development and select a path for sustainability following a smart approach. Cities should evolve as smart communities understanding the potential of information technology to support collaboration between public and private organizations in order to improve urban competitiveness, sustain innovation and ensure the quality of life. The aim of this study is to identify the dimensions leading cities to sustainability: developing a smart approach; sustaining the role of municipal institutions for building smart governance; promoting education, learning and innovation. Design/methodology/approach – As smart communities, cities use technology to develop smartness and sustainability for knowledge and innovation. This study is based on archival and qualitative data drawn by literature review and analysis on smart and sustainable cities and communities. Originality/value – Cities promoting a smart approach should select a path for sustainability. Identifying dimensions driving cities to develop as sustainable cities and communities helps to identify knowledge source for innovation and urban growth. Practical implications – As smart and sustainable communities, cities should encourage partnerships between private and public actors in order to provide services, create and ensure high quality of life. As communities, cities should support people by sustaining learning and education, developing smart institutions of governance to design policies driving sustainable urban growth and development

The city of future: biourbanism and constructural law

Nowadays dynamic elements in urban fabric are often concealed by the insertion of stylish new architecture; real patterns of social life (‘bios’), have been replaced by rigid geometric grids and compact building blocks. New Urbanism and Biourbanism affirm that cities are now risking to be unstable and deprived of healthy social interactions. As an expansion of older historical urban fabric patterns, harmonious architecture can have a positive impact on the fitness of both human body and mind. Not only Biourbanism attempts to reinstate balance and lost values in the urban fabric, but also reinforces human-oriented design emergences in micro and macro scales. As a multifaceted discipline, it embraces laws of physics, such as Constructal Law and acknowledges its noticeable and unremitting influence to urban human behaviours. Urban life and behaviours are based upon systems of human communication formed by dynamic patterns; we are now talking about negotiating boundaries between human activities, changes in geographic mapping and mainly about sustainable systems to support uninterrupted growth of communities worldwide. Therefore, as a vital shift in architectural education, not only Biourbanism offers the opportunity to explore patterns and linguistics deeply imbedded into the built environment, but also enables scholars and communities to come together and participate actively into fast and innovative urban interventions. Projects developed during educational and professional training aim at reinstating memorable and preferential paths of communication, favouring everyday life rituals of the body and mind. Hence, by following everlasting laws of physics and formulas inherited from nature, architectural forms can be considered as the real innovation in urban design and planning of the City of the Future.Conference presentation funded by Department of Engineering

Rethinking Higher Education: A Case Study of Institutional Transformation

U.S. public higher education faces increasing challenges, including changing models of educational delivery, declining state funding, alternative credentialing, demographic shifts in student populations, questions concerning the relevancy of the curriculum, increased cost, and increasing competition. This paper presents a case study of one of the most comprehensive higher education redesign efforts at an urban research university. reTHINK PSU, a presidential initiative at Portland State University (PSU), is a campus-wide effort to deliver an education that serves more students with better outcomes, while containing costs through curricular innovation, community engagement, and effective use of technology. reTHINK PSU projects follow a well-designed roadmap for developing solutions for challenges facing PSU. The initiative used the principles of open innovation, design thinking, project management, and the creation of innovation platforms to launch a series of successful projects. This paper will summarize these efforts and will outline an organizational transformation strategy that may be replicated by other institutions wanting to innovate and redesign their operations. Keywords: Innovation, Higher Education, Design Thinking, Crowdsourcin

Co-Designing Urban Planning Engagement and Innovation: Using LEGO® to Facilitate Collaboration, Participation and Ideas

There is a growing academic interest in the idea of co-designing methods to achieve urban innovation and urban planning. As we see cities as “living laboratories,” beyond the control of elected city government, there is a momentum to develop and test shared responses to the social, environmental, and economic challenges present in contemporary urbanism. These living laboratories are a function of open innovation or “quadruple helix” actors, drawn from state, business, higher education, and community sectors. However, translating the often-good intention principles of working together through shared and co-designed arrangements in any major urban area is often a significant challenge and a topic neglected to date. This article addresses this gap through the case study of Newcastle City Futures, a university-anchored platform in the northeast of the UK, that sought to co-design collaborative urban research, public engagement, and innovation. Newcastle City Futures created novel working methods centred on participatory games to facilitate shared understanding and joint ideas for new urban innovation projects across established sectors. This article will examine one method that was successful in generating collaboration and participation: “LEGO® mash-ups.” Detailed empirical accounts of the development of the LEGO® mash-up method are used to illustrate attitudes to urban challenges, the fostering of a spirit of open collaboration, and the development of innovative responses through co-design. These are used to support the conceptual argument that the use of the quadruple helix as a form of urban innovation system needs to be accompanied by accessible, workable, and easily interpreted translation methods, such as games, by intermediaries

The Role of the Arts in the Humanities and Social Science Classroom

There are at least two compelling reasons to incorporate the visual arts (by which I mean architecture and urban planning, the design professions and the fine arts) in humanities and social science teaching at all levels. The first is the generative role of architecture and urban planning, the design professions and the fine arts in the education of the senses. The second is our democracy's need for an informed citizenry in an iconic age. [From the intro paragraph]]]> 1989 English http://libres.uncg.edu/ir/asu/f/Carp_Richard_1989_the_role.X.pdf oai:libres.uncg.edu/4545 2014-02-17T06:01:51Z UNCG Diffusion of Innovation Theory: A Bridge for the Research–Practice Gap in Counseling Murray, Christine E. NC DOCKS at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro <![CDATA[This article presents a diffusion of innovation theory–based framework for addressing the gap between research and practice in the counseling profession. The author describes the nature of the research–practice gap and presents an overview of diffusion of innovation theory. On the basis of the application of several major postulates of diffusion of innovation theory to the research–practice gap, several theory-based research practices and questions are proposed

Enabling sustainable transformations through place-based urban design education

Global climate change influences on human settlements, create a new context and change the purpose of urban design education. It requires not only new urban design knowledge and skills, but most of all, it implies a different way of understanding the future of cities and, crucially, capabilities to shape it through immediate practical action. Education is recognized as the main leverage of this necessary professional and mindset capabilities shift. Therefore, academic architectural education started to evolve, searching for more effective educational methods and techniques. Future urban designers capable of enabling sustainable urban transformations should be prepared to cope with many uncertainties in a co-creative and integrating manner, in which resilience, adaptation and innovation, are becoming the keywords. In this paper, we present and discuss the outcomes of the education model developed under the integral theoretical framework of place-based education, applied at the bachelor's and master academic level at the University of Belgrade Faculty of Architecture over the last seven years. We argue that urban design education aimed to produce effective local responses to climate challenges needs to be learned through realistic problem-solving and in contact with stakeholders. The results indicate that this education model provides not only new professional competencies profile but also creates a niche of innovation that indirectly influences the building up of local social capital necessary to enable sustainable urban transformations

PERANCANGAN FASILITAS PENDIDIKAN BERTINGKAT UNTUK ANAK USIA DINI MENGGUNAKAN METODE INOVASI FUNGSI DENGAN PENEKANAN ISU KESELAMATAN DAN PENCITRAAN ISLAM

The development of early childhood education facilities at urban area, including islamic education, pressed to be realized as mulistorey buildings. Architecture design which has low awareness of particular characteristic of children activities would result on various weakness, such as children’s safety dan security. In addition, the lack of scientific publication regarding imaging  of  Islamic  educational  facility  for  children  also  an  issue.  Therefore,  a  qualitative research-based design is  conducted to obtain efficient design solution which can  reduce the construction cost, considering that it is a social building. The divergence phase aims to obtain criteria and solution alternatives from previous design through interviewing users and literature searchings, to be modified and combined. Innovation by voundary shifting, fucntional innovation, and precedent study methods are used to create design concepts. The ease for children activities to be supervised is achieved through centered spatial and circulation order. Children’s safety and security on their activities in multistorey buildings are preserved through the use of latest karawangan technology: laser cutting fiber cement which its cutting pattern is easily arraged, at the same time become a design solution for imaging islamic educational facility

Dynamic cities and creative clusters

The author focuses on how urban policies and the clustering of creative industries has influenced urban outcomes. The set of creative industries include those with output protectable under some form of intellectual property law. More specifically, this sub-sector encompasses software, multimedia, video games, industrial design, fashion, publishing, and research and development. The cities that form the basis for the empirical investigations are those where policy-induced transitions have been most evident, including Boston; San Francisco; San Diego; Seattle; Austin; Washington, D.C.; Dublin (Ireland); Hong Kong (China); and Bangalore (India). The key research questions are: 1) What types of cities are creative? 2) What locational factors are essential? 3) What are the common urban policy initiatives used by creative cities? The author explores the importance of the external environment for innovation and places it in the larger context of national innovation systems. Based on a study of development in Boston and San Diego, he isolates the factors and policies that have contributed to the local clustering of particular creative industries. In both cities, universities have played a major role in catalyzing the local economy by generating cutting-edge research findings, proactively collaborating with industries, and supplying the needed human capital. In addition, these two cities benefited from the existence of anchor firms and active industry associations that promoted fruitful university-industry links. Many cities in East Asia are aspiring to become the creative hubs of the region. But their investments tend to be heavily biased toward infrastructure provision. Although this is necessary, the heavy emphasis on hardware can lead to underinvestment in developing the talents and skills needed for the emergence of creative industries in these cities.Public Health Promotion,ICT Policy and Strategies,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Decentralization,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,ICT Policy and Strategies,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,Educational Technology and Distance Education,Agricultural Research

Urban Smart Shading Devices based on Traditional Gulf Design. Case study located in a district of a hot-arid climate city (Abu Dhabi).

In a city with hot arid weather such as Abu Dhabi, creating outdoor shading is a main concern. This not only a strategy to improve the outdoor comfort but also a very efficient solution to mitigate the urban heat island effect. In previous studies, we analyzed the extensive deployment of shading devices in 5 different districts in the main island of Abu Dhabi. In the present study, our aim is to show how innovation and tradition can be merged. Innovation is all encompassing concept but in our case the basis of innovation is its tradition. In the past, the Gulf countries built cities with narrow streets covering some of them partially. The Mashrabiya is a well-known concept used in the traditional architecture. If an innovative intervention is made in an urban context it has to be connected to the culture of the city and its roots. A system of smart shading devices based on traditional geometric design is a sustainable solution and also contributes to the education of younger generations. The proposed smart shading devices are made of tent with Photovoltaic (PV) cells integrated in it. This choice stems from the flexibility in shape that such a material can offer. We will establish a comparison between current commercially materials and our solution in terms of efficiency and life-cycle energy/cost. The market offers mainly tent made of PTFE with steel structure. A random design used in specific parking lots and small parks areas downtown Abu Dhabi. In this paper we bring alternative solutions in terms of efficiency and flexibility and also describe the different design options that we tested and how the optimal design was selected