The main goal of the SMoG Design Studio is to strengthen students’ understanding of how urban form provides a framework and creates conditions for social and environmental processes. Theories and methods in analytical Urban Morphology, especially network analysis (Space Syntax) and density analysis (Spacematrix), are used to arrive at what can be called an evidence-based-design methodology.
The studio is organised around a sequence of connected workshops, laboratories in GIS, lectures, literature seminars and a design studio. Workshops give room for experiments, lectures transfer knowledge and offer inspiration, laboratories in GIS gave the technical knowhow to conduct advanced spatial analysis, literature seminars deepened the understanding and critical reading of theories and methods, which is synthesised on the Masterplans and key-projects.
This year, the studio focused on both social-economic and ecological sustainability. For the first, people sharing public space is central as it steers many social and economic processes in cities. To address ecological processes in the design, a new topic for this years’ studio, the green and blue infrastructure was discussed through the lens of ecosystem services, including both cultural services (e.g. recreational, therapeutic) as well as supporting and regulating services (e.g. pollination, biodiversity).
For the online publications follow the links below:
SMoG Design Studio 2019. Volume 1. Frölunda-Högsbo >>
SMoG Design Studio 2019. Volume 2. Hisingen >>
