International 20th Urban Design and Implementations Symposium: International 4th Congress of Urban Design: towards a charter of urban design: 27-28 May 2009

Abstract

Within past 20 years the symposiums we held here revealed that Urban Design as a dynamic field of specialization changing all the times. Its paradigms are changing, the structure of education varies from university to university, its project types change in size and programs, and the roles and status are still debated among the planners and architects. The congress is composed as an occasion to discuss Urban Design as ever changing field. To that end four themes for panel discussions are defined for encouraging participants to go into a deeper and more focused conversation about the issues facing urban design in 2009. Through these ever changing dynamics of urban design, key issues and questions listed below are needed to be discussed and innovations and ideas to be conveyed to the academy and to the public at large./ Questioning the reductive aspects of the loca] and global debate/ Debating about design invention and urban preservation, urban history/ The need to find and invent urban minded clients/ Engagement of power players in urban environments like universities, housing authorities, planning organizations and design organizations of loca) governments. The role of Urban Design as a tool to empower politically weak parts and to increase their participation control on the decision making process Enhancing the status of discipline through research programs in Academy Reinforcing communication between academy and profession/ The need of urban design to reinvent itself due to changing paradigms/ What urban design might do more effectively in the future to betler prepare students for economic and political realities they would face when entering the working world./ Placing greater emphasis on urban design's political regulatory and programmatic dimensions are important initiatives to pursue. Prof. Or. Aykut Karaman