UPD210 Urban Design and Theory II S2. 2023-2024

I.      Overview

Assuming that you operate an urban design firm named after your philosophy. The  municipal government has recently launched a competition to develop an urban regeneration plan for the Cha Hua Cun neighbourhood (茶花村) in Gusu District, Suzhou. Your team's next goal is to submit the best inventive regeneration strategy and win the competition. After the first task of the group work, the second task is to develop a detailed spatial design strategy to regenerate the specific area allocated to you within the group. This work should be done individually. Only submission in English is accepted.

II.     Specifications

Delivery format:

This individual work should include:

•    One poster (A0 size) that illustrates your specific design strategy for regenerating a specific historical area allocated to you within the group.

•    A 5-minute oral presentation for your individual design proposal

Submission:

•    The digital file of your poster should be uploaded to the Learning Mall Core (LMC) page by 8 pm Wednesday, 22 May, 2024 (Beijing time). The hard copy of the poster should be printed and pinned up in the tutorial room before the review time. Failure to do so will be penalised as per the University policy.

•    The oral presentation will take place from  10 am Friday, 24 May, 2024 (Beijing time). The hard copy of the poster should be printed and pinned up in the tutorial room before the review time. Students who fail to attend the presentation will be marked as ‘0’ as a penalty unless in circumstances where the University Mitigating Policy applies.

Requirements

For this coursework, you are expected to follow your CW1 group proposal for regenerating the Cha Hua Cun neighbourhood (茶花村) and choose an area from your masterplan to develop more detailed design strategies for your individual project. Your output should be a spatial design strategy to address the issue identified in your group’s site analysis and design concept proposed in CW1. Further specific design concepts/visions can be developed from those in CW1 if relevant.

CW2 output

You will work individually during weeks 10- 13. The assignment consists of two parts: one individual poster (A0 size) in landscape orientation and an oral presentation.

Please  incorporate the specific vision/concept developed in your individual work  into the poster header/title. Text fonts, sizes and colour schemes should remain consistent in the poster.

Poster 1 (A0): One individual poster

•    Your poster should effectively illustrate the detailed design in conjunction with the concept and present the technical drawings of your design proposal.

•     If a design proposal is about what you have done, the design rationale serves to provide an explanation for your decisions. Your design rationale should explain why you decided to introduce a particular type of design intervention. It can pertain a problem identified during the site analysis (e.g., lack of facilities, poor quality of public space, unsafe pedestrians, etc.) or the objective you desire achieve. In addition, the design concept serves as an abstraction of your design proposal, breaking it down into, for example, different steps of a design ‘process’ or different elements of a final design ‘product’ .

•    Your detailed design should be illustrated via scaled technical drawings as below:

-    A detailed master plan (scale: 1:200 to 500) describing the activities on the ground floor of public spaces and buildings. If relevant, you can include additional floor plans, for example, to illustrate elevated or underground public spaces or pedestrian paths.

-    The sections and/or elevations (scale: 1:200 to 500), presenting your sections/elevations at the same scale as your plan so that audiences can understand your spatial arrangement by reading these 2D drawings.

-    Section lines should be carefully selected to highlight the focal area of the design proposal and clearly indicated on the site plan.

-    Visualised/rendered images illustrating the vision you want to achieve through your design project.

-    You are also encouraged to include hand-drawn sketches and graphics in your individual poster. Hand drawing and CAD drawing communicate differently. Sometimes, a mix of both conveys more effectively.

-    A evaluation of the design proposal is required (e.g., how will this proposal address the local issues? how will this proposal positively affect the site and surrounding areas?, etc).

-     Incorporating action plans, regulations, or policies into the urban design master plan can effectively achieve the imaginative vision.

All graphics must be self-explanatory without lengthy descriptions. Please do not put graphics for only  graphics; rather, use them to present your insights, build logic and vision stories, and persuade others through visual communication. Pay attention to leveraging the effective layout.

Final review

Each student will have 5 minutes to present the information on your poster. Your presentation should include a concise introduction to your group project and then elaborate on how you have drawn on CW1 to develop your design rationale and strategies for your chosen site of CW2. The schedule of the presentation will be provided separately.  Conducting a rehearse before the review  is highly recommended.

III.   Learning Outcomes Assessed

This assignment assesses the following five learning outcomes of the module. Students completing the module successfully should be able to:

A. Use basic tools and techniques commonly used in urban design studies

B. Understand the particular characteristics and qualities of urban public spaces

C. Identify the organisational and operational principles associated with urban design procedures

D. Judge what constitutes successful urban design and its characteristics

E. Explain responsive environments and its relationship to urban design

IV.  Assessment Criteria

•    For the rating scale of the final marks, please refer to the ‘General Marking Descriptors for Postgraduate Master Assessment’ in the Academic Policies and Procedures Handbook pp.356- 357.

V.    Plagiarism, Cheating, and Fabrication of Data

The University and Department treat with the utmost seriousness all suspected cases of academic malpractice. The standard penalties are listed below:

1. Plagiarism, copying, collusion or dishonest use of data (Category C): Award ‘0’ for that assessment task

2. Second Category C offence (Category D) : Award ‘0’ for the whole module

3. Third Category C offence or unfair and/or dishonest academic practice:

a. Suspension for one year, or

b. Termination of studies

Please see the “Academic Integrity Policy” document available on e-Bridge in the Student Academic Services section under the heading 'Policies and Regulations’ .

VI.  Rules of submission for assessed coursework

The University has detailed rules and procedures governing the submission of assessed coursework. You need to be familiar with them. Details can be found in the “Code of Practice for Assessment” available on e-Bridge in the ‘Student Academic Services’ section under the heading ‘Policies and Regulations’ .

VII. Late Submission of Assessed Coursework

Five percentage points will be deducted from your mark out of 100 for the assessment for each working day after the submission date/time, up to a maximum of five working days. Thereafter, a mark of zero will be awarded. Please note that it is university policy that there can be no exceptions to this rule without appropriate certification.

VIII. Generative AI

The use of Generative Artificial Intelligence tools (such as Chat GPT) for this assessment is allowed exclusively for  copy  editing  and  proofreading  but  not  to  generate  new  content.  The  submitted essay/report/assignment  must  be  entirely  your  own  work,  in  compliance  with  the  University’s academic integrity policy.

For more information and resources on Generative AI and your learning and assessment, please consult the “XJTLU AI for Learning” pages of the Learning Mall Core.