🗺 Course
URB145 - “From Closed to Open: Planning for Fluidity and Rupture in Belo Horizonte and Chicago”
Federal University of Minas Gerais School of Architecture
Fall 2022
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Flyer for the course (taught fully in Portuguese)
The discipline aims to explore techniques of reading the city that can be used architecture students to build more sustainable, fair and inclusive urban spaces. The course applies the open city concept formulated by Richard Sennett (2018) to explore the little-known urban history that connects the planned cities of Chicago and Belo Horizonte. Students are invited to debate transcontinental urban history, broadening their ability to propose interventions in their local contexts. Through lectures, guest speakers, field visits, debates and experiments in artistic representation, students are, via the discussion of methods to critically interact with the rigidity of planned cities, asked to explore ways to convert urban spaces from “closed” to “open”.
Me presenting during a lecture
Students presenting analysis from the site visits
Students presenting analysis of “closed” and “open” spaces in their communities
Students and co-teacher, Daniel Madeiros de Freitas, at the beginning of a site visit to analyze a market that has both “closed” and “open” city elements.
Students sharing ideas and debating during the site visit