For a seminar paper i will be looking closer at critical geography, and via the corresponding Wikipedia article i stumbled upon a freely available reader called Critical Geographies: A Collection of Readings that spans over 150 years of discourse and 36 texts organized into four themes. Harald Bauder and Salvatore Engel-Di Mauro have compiled this compilation and made all readings available as PDFs.

This is another reading response for the course Urban Design Theory given by David Monteyne at the University of Calgary.

The major theme I got from this week’s texts is the social meaning of urban space and the collective construction (or deprivation) of place. Norberg-Schulz [1] gives a philosophical account of what the essence of a place might be. Relph [2] and Oldenburg [3] problematize the impoverishment of public space and place in North America. Massey [4] provides a more critical and global understanding of place, whereas Hayden [5] sees urban place as a space for public history. Along these readings, I will discuss in the following a) how place can be conceptualized and b) how place should be transformed for the better. Read the rest of this entry »

This is another reading response for the course Urban Design Theory given by David Monteyne at the University of Calgary.

The readings I have chosen for this week are about the ecological, social, and participatory aspects of urban planning and design. A common theme–which may be utterly obvious–is that urban (design) processes are complex and are therefore to be treated by designers and planners with great care and compassion. While this complexity may call for professionals, I argue that it requires the public as protagonists not mere participants. At the end of this little text I argue for an–also possibly utterly obvious–intervention that integrates those aspects. Read the rest of this entry »