← All sessions
Course overview
Teaching
components
The course has eight sessions. Each runs from 13:45 to 17:15 in three teaching blocks, starting at 13:45, 15:05 and 16:10. Every block belongs to one of three teaching strands, shown by colour throughout this page.
Read a session from left to right to see one afternoon. Follow a colour down the page to see how a strand builds over the quarter.
At a glance ↓Session by session ↓
Basic research methods and report organisation · 9 blocks
Planning theory, governance and policy design · 8 blocks
Spatial justice and sustainability · 7 blocks
At a glance
Eight afternoons, three strands
Click a block to jump to its session. On a phone, swipe the table sideways.
01
Week 3.1 · 13:45 to 17:15
The Earth is Flat
Philosophy of science, knowledge claims, observing the city
Feeds the report · Methodology
13:45
Basic research methods & report organisation
Intro to the course + Basic research methods I: observations & street interviews
Position research methods as deliberate epistemic choices; introduce observation and street interview as systematic ways to generate knowledge; address positionality, consent and interpretation.
15:05
Planning theory, governance & policy design
Using theory to guide research and design
Treat theory as a practical guide for framing research and design choices; explain how methodological choices render some urban realities visible and others invisible.
16:10
Spatial justice & sustainability
Introduction to philosophy of science
Open the quarter by situating urbanism within the philosophy of science; introduce knowledge, belief, evidence and the scientific method through the flat-Earth case.
By the end of this session
Distinguish knowledge from belief; justify methodological choices; conduct ethical observation and street interview; articulate positionality.
02
Week 3.2 · 13:45 to 17:15
The Idea of Justice
Starting up research, literature review, values in urbanism
Feeds the report · Theoretical framework
13:45
Basic research methods & report organisation
Starting up your research + Basic methods II: literature review
Move from broad interests to feasible research questions; introduce literature review as critical synthesis and positioning rather than mere summary.
15:05
Planning theory, governance & policy design
Ontology, epistemology and axiology in urbanism
Make explicit the entanglement between ontological foundations and axiological consequences; show that planning rests on contested assumptions about what exists and what matters.
16:10
Spatial justice & sustainability
Values in urbanism and spatial justice
Establish that research is never value-neutral; introduce spatial justice (Soja, Fraser, Young) as an internal good of planning; ground social sustainability in justice.
By the end of this session
Formulate a feasible research question; structure a positioning literature review; articulate the values informing a planning project.
03
Week 3.3 · 13:45 to 17:15
It’s a Deal
From problem statement to objectives; subjective mapping; sustainability
Feeds the report · Problem statement & research questions
13:45
Basic research methods & report organisation
From problem statement to research and design objectives + Basic methods III: subjective mapping
Translate problem statements into coherent research and design objectives; align questions, methods and outcomes; introduce subjective mapping as a tool for lived experience.
15:05
Planning theory, governance & policy design
Policy as deal-making: the European Green Deal as case
Read the EGD as a governance instrument; examine how policy frames problems, distributes burdens, and creates winners and losers.
16:10
Spatial justice & sustainability
Introduction to the theory of sustainability
Trace the evolution, contradictions and political dimensions of sustainability via the “Tragedy of the Commons”; assess sustainability claims against spatial justice; situate climate action in a regenerative paradigm.
By the end of this session
Write aligned RQ–methods–objectives; apply subjective mapping; critically assess sustainability claims and their distributive implications.
04
Week 3.4 · Mid-term · Monday · 13:45 to 17:15
I Have a Dream
Academic writing, visioning, governance and policy analysis
Feeds the report · Conceptual framework
13:45
Basic research methods & report organisation
The Conceptual Framework
Understanding the difference between theory and concept and between method and methodology. Tinkering with ideas, concepts, tools and frameworks via the Conceptual Framework.
15:05
Planning theory, governance & policy design
Governance, participation and deliberation + policy analysis
Read governance as the configuration of state, market, network and civil society; analyse policy as a political instrument rather than a neutral technical tool.
16:10
Basic research methods & report organisation
Basics of academic writing + Basic methods IV: visioning and values in planning
Treat writing as a method of thinking; clarity, structure and argumentation; introduce visioning as a structured method to mobilise stakeholders toward desirable futures.
By the end of this session
Write disciplined academic prose; design a visioning exercise; analyse a policy as a political instrument and not a technical fix.
05
Week 3.5 · 13:45 to 17:15
Attention, Please!
Presentation skills, in-depth interviews, participation
Feeds the report · Methodology
13:45
Basic research methods & report organisation
Presentation skills + Basic methods V: in-depth interviews
Build narrative structure, visual communication and argument coherence in oral presentation; introduce in-depth interviews with attention to ethics, power and interpretation.
15:05
Planning theory, governance & policy design
Participation and participatory planning
Examine participation as an institutional practice; the power/interest matrix; citizen science and consultative bodies such as the French Climate Convention.
16:10
Spatial justice & sustainability
Participation as inclusion and as exclusion
Show that participatory mechanisms can both enable inclusion and reproduce exclusion at the implementation stage; assess thresholds of meaningful participation via the Participatory and Communicative Model (Habermas, Healey, Innes, Forester). Decoloniality in planning (via Ananya Roy and Faranak Miraftab).
By the end of this session
Present research persuasively; conduct ethical in-depth interviews; critically assess the promises and limits of participatory mechanisms.
06
Week 3.6 · 13:45 to 17:15
Do Artefacts Have Politics?
Communication, ethics, pluriverse and prefigurative urbanism
Feeds the report · Evaluation (ethics)
13:45
Basic research methods & report organisation
Communication and dissemination of your work + ethics for the built environment
Treat communication as a political act shaping how knowledge circulates; engage with consent, representation and harm in research on the built environment.
15:05
Planning theory, governance & policy design
The pluriverse and prefigurative urbanism
Challenge universalist assumptions in planning; introduce pluriversal and prefigurative practices that enact alternative futures in the present.
16:10
Spatial justice & sustainability
Artefacts, infrastructures and power (Winner, Moses)
Show how design choices embed authority, agency and visibility; revisit Robert Moses’s parkways, hostile architecture and anti-homeless design as spatial politics (via Robert Caro).
By the end of this session
Identify politics embedded in design and infrastructure; navigate ethical dilemmas in built-environment research; engage alternative epistemologies.
07
Week 3.7 · 13:45 to 17:15
Show and Tell
Debate on student reports, narratives, socio-technical transitions
Feeds the report · The whole report · peer debate
13:45
Basic research methods & report organisation
Tutorial on the report and structured debate
Engage students with one another’s reports; assess coherence between questions, methods and concepts; sharpen argument through structured exchange.
15:05
Planning theory, governance & policy design
Discourse, narrative and communicative planning
Use Foucault’s notion of discourse and Healey’s communicative planning to read narratives as the medium through which planning decisions are made and contested.
16:10
Spatial justice & sustainability
Socio-technical transitions to sustainability
Examine how technologies, institutions and social practices co-evolve; foreground power, path dependency and contestation in transition processes.
By the end of this session
Critique the alignment of RQ, methods and concepts in peers’ work; read narratives as governance instruments; analyse transitions as contested processes.
08
Week 3.8 · 13:45 to 17:15
Q&A and Tutoring
Consolidation, targeted feedback, iteration on the report. Groups choose what they want to discuss and book appointments with teachers.
Feeds the report · The whole report · tutoring
13:45
Basic research methods & report organisation
Tutorial on report structure and academic writing
Group and individual tutoring on report structure, citation, internal coherence; iteration as a method of refinement.
15:05
Planning theory, governance & policy design
Clarification on the conceptual framework
Targeted feedback on conceptual framework: alignment of concepts, mechanisms and case; consistency of key terms across the report.
16:10
Spatial justice & sustainability
Targeted feedback on justice and sustainability framing
Refine how spatial justice and sustainability are framed and operationalised in each group’s project; address the individual ethics reflection.
By the end of this session
Consolidate methodological and conceptual learning; refine arguments through iteration; close the loop between theory, method and design.