2024 Faculty Courses School of Environment and Society Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Graduate major in Urban Design and Built Environment
The Principles of Community Design
- Academic unit or major
- Graduate major in Urban Design and Built Environment
- Instructor(s)
- Masato Dohi
- Class Format
- Lecture (Face-to-face)
- Media-enhanced courses
- -
- Day of week/Period
(Classrooms) - 5-6 Thu
- Class
- -
- Course Code
- UDE.D410
- Number of credits
- 100
- Course offered
- 2024
- Offered quarter
- 3Q
- Syllabus updated
- Mar 14, 2025
- Language
- Japanese
Syllabus
Course overview and goals
Description: It has been only 15 years since the requirement of citizen participation in designing the public space came to be taken for granted. Why is participation necessary? How is the participatory design different from the conventional design offered by experts, in terms of the designing process and forms? This course lectures today’s position of community design as a solution for the current challenges of socio-spatial design from a theoretical perspective.
Aim: This course provides lectures on principles and techniques required for community design, which is seen to be practical realisation of socio-spatial approaches. It aims to get students understand and acquire these principles and techniques.
Course description and aims
By the end of this course, students will be able to:
1) Understand and explain the theoretical background and historical development of community design.
2) Understand and explain the features and social role of community designers’ occupational ability.
3) Understand and explain the processes expressed in the urban design through citizen participation under the principles of community design.
Keywords
Community design, citizen participation, community designer, urban design
Competencies
- Specialist skills
- Intercultural skills
- Communication skills
- Critical thinking skills
- Practical and/or problem-solving skills
Class flow
How each class will be conducted: A lecture on a topic is provided for the first 45 minutes; and for the second half, students present their research results on the topic followed by an open discussion.
How the subject matter will be covered over the course of teaching: The course shows the theoretical and historical position of community design and the occupational ability of community designers. It discusses the challenges for community design, which is essential for the coming era.
The method of teaching: This course encourages the proactive thinking of students by combining presentations and discussions with lectures.
Course schedule/Objectives
| Course schedule | Objectives | |
|---|---|---|
| Class 1 | Orientation | Understand how community design can be situated theoretically in the academic sphere. |
| Class 2 | What is community design: the historical development | Understand and explain the historical development of community design including how it was generated and developed. |
| Class 3 | What is community design: challenges and techniques | Understand and explain techniques that are distinctive of community design. |
| Class 4 | What is community design: principles as an occupation | Understand and explain the professional ethics and practices that community designers are required. |
| Class 5 | What is community design: the occupational ability | Understand and explain the features of the occupational ability of community designers. |
| Class 6 | The principles of community design: working together | Understand and explain how to work together with diverse groups of people and the social sector, which is one of the community design principles. |
| Class 7 | The principles of community design: advocacy | Understand and explain the necessity and components of advocacy, which is one of the principles of community design. |
Study advice (preparation and review)
To enhance effective learning, students are encouraged to spend approximately 100 minutes preparing for class and another 100 minutes reviewing class content afterwards (including assignments) for each class.
They should do so by referring to textbooks and other course material.
Textbook(s)
Hester, R. T. and Dohi, M. (1997) “Machizukuri no hoho to gijutsu [The methods and techniques of community design]”, Gendai Kikakushitsu
Reference books, course materials, etc.
Course materials are distributed as necessary.
Evaluation methods and criteria
Students are required to do a research presentation and submit a report. Both presentations and reports are marked out of 100 with 25 for the degree of understanding, 25 for the knowledge, 25 for the ability of structuring the report, and the final 25 for the ability of expressing the idea.
Related courses
- ARC.P302 ： Landscape Architecture
- ARC.P204 ： Introduction to Urban Study
- UDE.D412 ： The Practice of Community Design
- UDE.D403 ： Theories of Urban and Community Design
- UDE.D449 ： Landscape Design Studio Ⅱ
Prerequisites
None required.