Welcome to the course Sustainable Planning and Design!

AG2805 Sustainable Planning and Design is a 15.0 credit full-time course introducing the master’s program Sustainable Urban Planning and Design (SUPD). The course and the program are interdisciplinary by nature, aiming to introduce students with various backgrounds in engineering, architecture, planning, environmental and social science and the humanities, to each others’ ways of seeing, thinking and doing sustainable urban development. The course also aims at supporting the students to reflect on the relationship between, on the one hand, sustainable urban development, and, on the other hand, sustainable development in general, or at a regional, national or global scale, but also to turn these insights into actionable knowledge.

Please consult the course plan (Links to an external site.) to see the intended learning outcomes, admission requirements, etc.

The course is divided into four main parts. If you have any question, contact in priority Erika Kriukelyte erikakri@kth.se , or the teachers responsible for the relevant part.

Part 1 - Pre/Present/Post Stockholm

In this part of the course, you will be introduced to Stockholm, to one another, and to discussing and developing concepts of sustainability, planning, and urban design via intense and focused project work where you learn from one another, in supervision, at presentation, and through the project, you work on in groups.

Responsible teachers: Daniel Koch daniel.koch@arch.kth.se

Runs: Monday 24/8 to Friday 4/9

Part 2 - Methods for assessing and understanding sustainable urban development

Part 2 comprises a series of lectures, exercises and seminars introducing a selection of methods for planning and design. The idea behind this is to provide an opportunity for students to try out methods from different disciplines, and gain a better understanding of the strengths and drawbacks of these. Each method is introduced by a short lecture, after which the students apply the method through an exercise in smaller groups. The exercises function as a basis for peer-to-peer learning, and as preparation for the individual essay by which this part is examined.

Responsible teachers: Greger Henriksson greger.henriksson@abe.kth.se

Runs: Monday 7/9 to Thursday 17/9

Part 3 - Group Project: a Sustainable Inner City 2050

Part 3 comprises a larger project group work in which students are to develop a planning and design proposal that, if implemented, would substantially contribute to increased sustainability of a specific urban area, this year focused on the inner city of Stockholm. You can apply for doing either a Planning Project or a Design Project.

Both project types consist of two main phases; starting with a long-term vision to establish core ideas for long term sustainability in the first phase, to then make a pragmatic revision to define what can and must be done on the way there, including the actors that will be involved. Design groups investigate this through drawings and put together a cohesive presentation of the proposal. Planning groups instead write a report and prepare a presentation of the proposal.

The project work is presented orally at a final critique.

Responsible teacher: Greger Henriksson greger.henriksson@abe.kth.se and Pernilla Hagbert pernilla.hagbert@abe.kth.se

Runs: Thursday 17/9 to Friday 16/10

Part 4 - Reflective home exam

Part 4 comprises a home exam which asks the student to describe, compare and critically discuss methods for and definitions of “sustainable urban development”, respectively “sustainable development” in a general sense, and how they relate to each other. Students are also asked to reflect on the project work in relation to a number of predefined themes/focal points.

Responsible teacher: Pernilla Hagbert pernilla.hagbert@abe.kth.se

Runs: Monday 19/10 to Thursday 22/10 (4 days)

Lecture packages

Thematic lecture packages are given every Monday afternoon 13.00-16.00 during the first five weeks of the course. Invited lecturers will offer their approaches and provide insights into how they work with these issues in different ways, in their research and/or in practice. The lectures are grouped in the following themes:

“Ecologies”

“Production & consumption”

“Social (& urban) justice”

“Infrastructure & services”

“Governance & policy”

Each lecture package session will contain three short lectures (of about 30-40 minutes each), followed by a panel debate where the invited lecturers are asked to comment on each other’s presentations (and points of view) and then available for questions from the students.

Premises

The course will be based at the Lounge. Address: Teknikringen 10b

Full-time studies

Please note that the course runs full-time from August 24 to October 23. This implies around 40 hours of course work per week. Apart from lectures and other scheduled activities, the course demands substantial time for group work. The course is intense and practice-based and includes several mandatory exercises and tutoring sessions, implying that there are very limited possibilities for holiday trips during the course. As a student, it is your responsibility to make sure that any travelling plans of yours are compatible with the schedule and the course tasks (and the current COVID-19 recommendations).

COVID-19 (constantly updating)

Considering the ongoing situation with Covid-19, the course will be adapted to ensure a safe learning environment in line with the current recommendations from Swedish authorities. We ask for your patience and co-operation in this, where we will try to accommodate different needs and requirements while maintaining the quality of education. It is important that we reduce the travel to and from KTH campus, and try to organize activities in a way that minimizes the need to go back and forth. Please let us know if you have certain circumstances or needs that we should take into consideration, and we can discuss how to solve this together.

For most of the scheduled mandatory activities (including lectures, method exercises, presentations and final critique), we will seek to hold an on campus session, with a maximum of 50 people present in the same room at a time, with the rest of the students joining online. To ensure that all students are given the same opportunities, we will have a rotating attendance scheme for example for lectures, where half of the class is given the opportunity to be on campus, while the other joins online, and vice versa for the next lecture. For other activities (including peer-review essay seminars, and some supervision sessions), these will be conducted only digitally. As this is the first time we run the course in this way, last minute changes and the availability of technical hardware and support might mean that we will all have to adapt as best as we can.

Please see the group division for the rotating on campus attendance under People -> rotating on-campus groups. It is very important that you consult the schedule for when your group (A or B) are allowed attend on campus. If it is not your allotted group's time to be on campus, please respect this and attend the respective activities online. This is to ensure a safe learning environment for all.

Disabilities? (Funka)

If you have a disability and need special facilities or support measures to follow this course, please contact the “Funka” coordinators via funka@kth.se You find more information here: https://www.kth.se/en/student/studentliv/funktionsnedsattning (Links to an external site.).

It is also important that you immediately, no later than the beginning of the course, contact the course responsible teachers and provide information on your needs, and, if necessary a certificate from KTH Funka coordinators. This must be done in order for us to take into account your specific needs during the course and its various parts.

Course registration

Students must register for the course. If you are not registered, you are not allowed to attend the course and your grades will not be reported. Registration is possible only after you have applied and been admitted to the course. Program students who have not applied when the course starts must contact their student counsellor or program coordinator. This is your own responsibility and cannot be arranged by the course coordinator.

Please register online for the course through My Pages -> Courses –> Registrations –> Web registration on the KTH website. You will immediately see in your personal menu when you have registered successfully. If you encounter any problems when registering, please contact the education office (Teknikringen 74).

The course page on Canvas

If you are reading this, then you found the Canvas page for the course, that's a good start! Erika Kriukelyte erikakri@kth.se is responsible for managing the Canvas page, let her know if you encounter any issue.

The main tab you will be using is Modules. There, information from the rest of the page including literature and assignments is organized following the parts of the course. Otherwise, you can also find the literature under Files and the assignments under Assignments, but Modules should be easier to follow.

You can find the schedule under Syllabus. Don't forget that you can sync the schedule with e.g. Outlook, iCal or Google Calendar by clicking on Calendar.

Plagiarism

KTH takes plagiarism and other forms of cheating very seriously. All assignments are automatically controlled for plagiarism. Do not copy text from each other. Do not copy large amounts of text from external sources without proper referencing (quotes with references are fine if they are used to support your own text, i.e. a quote should not constitute your entire answer to a question). Deliberate plagiarism leads to disciplinary measures from KTH, but in most cases, it is possible at an early stage to draw attention to the risk or suspicion of plagiarism.

Questions

Should you have any questions you are most welcome to contact us.

Best regards,
Pernilla Hagbert (Links to an external site.) and Greger Henriksson (Links to an external site.)
course responsible teachers