IN-PERSON Prague Research & Teaching Conference
Abstract
Urban design can be described as a chain reaction of different links or factors that relate to each other. Visualizing urban design factors in a chain reaction can serve as an eye-opener to design students. It helps them to understand the different aspects that make a city work and that determine how a city changes. The chain reaction can also show the students’ influence on cities and city design and when, where and how to “pull the string.“ In my urban design seminar students built a chain reaction of urban design at the beginning of the term. In teams of four people students first discussed urban design topics like Motion and Movement; Form, Function, Fiasco; Indoor and Outdoor Space; Urban Control and Social Organization. The groups then invented a link that had to begin and end by a string pull. In class we connected all devices to make one grand chain reaction of urban design which we filmed and analyzed. The response to his assignment revealed how the chain reaction exposed the design students to a variety of fundamental principles and theories about urban design. It also encouraged the students to think in a rigorous, creative, and imaginative way and broadened their analytical, problem solving and model making skills.
Prof. Dr. Sigrun Prahl studied architecture at the Technical University of Berlin, Germany. She worked as an architect in Berlin, Paris and New York City. She received several research grants and has published and lectured around the world. Sigrun has taught design, architecture and urban design in the United States and in Germany, including Cornell University, Wentworth Institute of Technology Boston, Massachussetts College of Art and Design Boston, and University of the Arts, Berlin. She holds a professorship of Urban Design at the University of Applied Sciences in Krefeld.
9:00 am - 10:30 am
Thursday 12th June, 2025