Urban Environments

This subject has the following teaching availabilities in 2012:

120 hours

It is University policy to take all reasonable steps to minimise the impact of disability upon academic study, and reasonable adjustments will be made to enhance a student's participation in the University's programs. This course requires all students to enrol in subjects where they must actively and safely contribute to class activities. Students who feel their disability will affect their meeting this requirement are encouraged to discuss this matter with the Subject Coordinator and the Disability Liaison Unit.

Further details on the disability support scheme can be found at the Disability Liaison Unit website: http://www.services.unimelb.edu.au/disability/

To understand why cities have become the most common living environment today, this subject will be built around three questions: what is ‘the urban' and why have cities formed and expanded?; how do we analyse the environments of contemporary cities?; and how might we create better urban futures? Looking to the past, special attention will be paid to cities of different times and places (the early Middle East, Industrial Revolution Europe and North America, rapidly urbanising contemporary China, for example). We will consider the cities' design, political and economic reasons for their development and form, and their dependence on local physical environments and resources. Analytically, approaches to city morphology, socio-economic differentiation and environmental auditing will be investigated and evaluated, linking these matters to contemporary globalisation. Looking to the future, current ideas about creative and environmentally-clever cities will be explored. Student experience of different local urban environments within Melbourne will form the basis of some tutorial and assessment tasks, raising questions about how better urban outcomes could be planned for the future.

At the completion of this subject students should have developed the following skills:

• observation of urban environments
• recording and analysis of real world urban environments
• evaluation of the influence of different factors on the urban environment
• recognition of the variety of opinions on the way urban environments are shaped
• ability to debate alternative approaches to improving the urban environment

• One 1500-word fieldwork journal reporting observations of selected urban environments, Week 1- Week 6 (semester 1); Week 1- Week 8 (semester 2) - 30%
• One 1500-word research essay, Week 7-Week 12 (semester 1); Week 9-Week 12 (semester 2) - 25%
• Tutorial Participation, Week 1 - Week 12, 10%
• One 2-hour end-of-semester examination, Exam period - 35%

Subject reader available from the university bookstore.

This subject potentially can be taken as a breadth subject component for the following courses:

• Bachelor of Arts
• Bachelor of Biomedicine
• Bachelor of Commerce
• Bachelor of Music
• Bachelor of Science
• Bachelor of Engineering

You should visit learn more about breadth subjects and read the breadth requirements for your degree, and should discuss your choice with your student adviser, before deciding on your subjects.

At the completion of this subject students should be able to:

• observe and record historical, physical and social aspects of urban environments
• engage in critical reading discussion
• understand geographic and planning aspects of urban analysis
• undertake library research
• research for and write an academic essay
• present an academic argument in written and spoken forms.