Introduction

‘Understanding the City’ is the Foundation Studio for the first semester PG students at the Faculty of Planning. 

The studio aims to develop an intimate understanding of the city and equips the students with conceptual, methodological, analytical, and communication skills necessary for becoming professional urbanists.

The studio focuses on an evidence-based approach for framing and analyzing complex urban situations for better understanding of the city.

Pedagogy

For this studio, Ahmedabad is both a textbook and an inventory. Students engage and interact with the city, learning from its people and the built environment.

Each Student is assigned one sq km ‘precinct’ in the city. They produce outputs based on a narrative presentation for pre-designed exercises. Each studio exercise focuses on a different component of the city, gradually building a holistic understanding of the city. 

We believe that ‘understanding’ is the first foundational step towards a robust urban planning curriculum. 

Students have been able to :

1. Map and measure the complexities of the built environment.

2. Learn to quantify, visualise and analyse urban data.

3. Engage ethically with the city dwellers through primary surveys and individual interviews.

4. Write descriptive and analytical texts while being familiarised with key text in different topics of urban planning history and theory

Foundation Program Exercises