Urban Utopia Block E | Andover Public Schools

We live in an era where the way we build and inhabit cities profoundly impacts our planet's health and the well-being of its inhabitants. We will embark on an exciting journey to explore the intersection of urban design, resource utilization, and sustainability.

You will learn how to identify and analyze the resources available in a particular city or region, such as mining sites, water bodies, and green spaces. Building upon the resource mapping exercise, you will explore circular design principles aimed at minimizing waste and maximizing resource efficiency. Then, you will brainstorm innovative ways to repurpose and reuse materials, integrate renewable energy sources, and create symbiotic relationships between different elements of the urban landscape. Finally, using the knowledge gained from resource analysis and circular design principles, you will develop master plans for future urban developments. Working at a city block scale, you will create massing models that consider factors such as transportation networks, green spaces, and zoning regulations.

For example, projects can range from redesigning how commercial and residential spaces work encourage walking, to creating a network of green spaces connecting neighborhoods together, all the way to designing a central transport hub with bike-sharing stations, electric vehicle charging points, and improved public transit access. Projects will take form as a massing model of their chosen site, highlighting their restructuring of the city.

Prompt

Designers represent their ideas through many different means: drawings, photographs, renderings, scale models, prototypes, and more. Each method presents specific advantages for highlighting different aspects of the concept and proposed execution.

Instructions

In this assignment, we will learn about different types of diagrams, and how we can use each one to further communicate the ideas of your project.

Review the presentation above to learn about the types of diagrams used by designers to communicate their ideas. Then each project team needs to create a Use Diagram and Technical Diagram. As you create your diagrams, consider how each one will highlight a different aspect of your idea. These diagrams should be useful tools for others to understand your idea.

Keep in mind that these diagrams will be shared in your final presentation, so take care to make them clean and easily understandable.

Draw a Use Diagram

Look back at examples of this type of diagram in the slides above.
Depict who is interacting with your project as well as how they are utilizing it.
Using arrows, color coding, and/or labels, point out the components of your project in your Use Diagram.

Draw a Technical Diagram

Look back at examples in the slides above. Notice how these examples deconstruct the object to show the individual elements.
Deconstruct or take apart your final project into multiple components. Try to highlight visually, how the project is put together to perform its functions.

Deliverables

Submit your Use Diagram/s or Technical Diagram/s in the Responses tab above.

Urban Utopia

Diagramming Workshop

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