Computation, as a systems logic has gained a level of accessibility to designers in recent years offering them a generative model for iterative and data driven design processes. Recursive Assemblies explores this logic through the creation of design analysis and solution models locating intention and execution at the level of protocols rather than as instances. These digital assemblies utilize a parametric framework to incorporate computation into the design process, designing and testing parametric generative models.
Latin American cities have long faced a lack of adequate housing for low-income residents. From an emphasis on top-down state interventions and the development of large housing complexes, planners and policy-makers are now experimenting with various forms of participatory approaches and public-private partnerships to address the need for low-income housing. At the same time, low-income residents in informal settlements must continue to rely on self-help strategies to construct their homes.
As housing becomes increasingly unaffordable for the region’s poorest, many are looking to informal settlements outside the city as inexpensive places to make their home. This forum will explore informal settlement patterns in the peri-urban areas in Texas, specifically drawing on examples in the Austin region.
For over two decades, planners and community leaders have debated the merits of light rail in the Austin region. Although passenger rail services can accommodate the growing transportation demand facing the region and provide an alternative to increasingly congested highways, the region has been challenged in its effort to build a multimodal system. In the meantime, other regions have moved ahead with plans and succeeded in integrating rail into their regional transportation systems.
The past decade has seen a dramatic rise in the levels of obesity, heart disease and cancer in children and adults because of decreased physical activity. These problems are exacerbated by limited access to parks and safe sidewalks and a lack of public safety in many communities. Cities now look to planners to assist in addressing this public health challenge. In this city forum, planners and public health professionals from The University of Texas, the City of Austin and the Austin community will discuss how planning interventions can improve public health in cities.
In cities across the United States, comprehensive planning is used to fulfill legal mandates, establish growth and development strategies, and provide opportunities for residents to play a role in defining the future of their communities. This City Forum will explore the comprehensive planning experience in Fort Worth and discuss possible lessons for Austin. This is the second in a series of City Forums devoted to Austin’s comprehensive planning process, developed and presented jointly by the Program in Community and Regional Planning and the City of Austin.
The photographs in the exhibit, Rigorous Visions: Capturing Contemporary Architecture, represent a small subset of the thousands of images that Professor Lawrence Speck has contributed to the School of Architecture's Visual Resources Collection.
Throughout the world, economic development, environmental processes, and institutional neglect threaten priceless historical buildings and monuments. Preservation of these archives of cultural history requires creative research strategies, the latest in data management and preservation technologies, and effective institutional coordination.
Cities are both real and imagined. Social constructions and narratives influence the way we think about neighborhoods, streets, buildings and public spaces, and these imaginaries in turn shape policy strategies and planning practices. In this City Forum, three University of Texas scholars will examine the connections between such social constructions, state control and planning practice, and everyday efforts by people to claim access to urban spaces. Their presentations draw on their research in Karachi, Pakistan; Ahmedabad, India; and Vienna, Austria.
Panelists and Abstracts