Abstract:

The Master of Environmental Planning and Design, at the University of Georgia, USA, offers to students the opportunity to integrate technology into the assessment and planning of current issues. This paper introduces both the conceptual ideas and a study case, based on an analysis of vulnerable areas for climate change and hazard planning in a coastal region, that represents a pressing topic worldwide.

Under this educational framework, first year master students, with a variety of backgrounds (sociology, environmental science, landscape architects, and others) are offered with a series of three sequential class studios, with a main focus on physical planning. During the first semester, students begin with a regional planning approach that evolves into a finer scale (city and neighborhood) planning in the next 2 studios. This class’ setting offers a collaborative environment where students integrate a variety of skills and technologies to solve specific real-world planning problems.

During the first semester, students take courses in four areas: geographic information systems (GIS), landscape ecology, graphic representation, and city planning, along with the first Regional Studio. With this mix, students have the opportunity to integrate their learning from these four areas into their studio topic. Students learn a mix of traditional representation techniques (sketching and drawing) combined with technological tools (Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and GIS) in order to produce a final plan in the Studio class. Using this mix, students learn to identify problems, to represent and communicate them, while also learning to work in teams, and to interact with a real client.

In the regional studio, students produce a final report and a poster, with a series of maps, sketches, and other graphic representations that represent their vision of the future for a particular region. In the latest edition of the Studio (Fall 2013) students had the opportunity to work for a client (the Coastal Regional Commission of Georgia) in producing a regional hazard and resilience plan for Coastal Georgia. Next steps of this project will involve an outreach program that involves not only the main client (Coastal Regional Commission of Georgia) but also the counties and other stakeholders involved in this project. Potential technology application for data sharing and collaborative project management will be discussed in the paper. This paper describes the context in which this course took place, the methods and some of the results from this Studio, with a final reflection on the pros and cons of this approach for the future of this planning program.

Keywords:

Studio, planning, collaborative, teaching.