The term ‘Urban Design’ expresses the intention to design the urban. Tackling the challenge of (creatively) influencing an assemblage that is socially produced and constantly in flux means first and foremost recognising the processes that produce it, making them tangible in order to understand them. To explore the heterogeneous elements in their interrelationships, to represent and evaluate them, would be the necessary prerequisite for having a trans–formative effect on the complex urban fabric. Seen in this light, Notations, Maps & Diagrams is about practicing a transcription of the urban, with the aim of developing a language of space (Krämer 2009). The graphic representation of epistemic objects not only opens the possibility of an instrumental or reflexive approach to what is represented, it is also about constitutive achievements. By being represented, it always reveals something about the production of what is represented. In contrast to the temporal succession of spoken language, "languages of space are rooted precisely in the representational potential of visible, ‚durable‘ and ‚frozen' relations, whose arrangement draws on the two-dimensionality of the surface as much as on the simultaneity of what is presented on the surface" (ibid.). The relationships between visual representation and its epistemic objects not only open an expanded field of visualization but also unlock new options for action.

The seminar ‘Notations, Maps & Diagrams’ offers insights into theoretical, methodological and practical approaches in the field of semiotics, diagrammatics and mapping. The focus of the course is on teaching and applying different methods of transcription, visual representation, knowledge production and communication based on the data collected in UDP1 and 3. In the main part, your fellow students will teach you the basics of using the relevant Adobe Suite software and Google SketchUp. They will also support you in the final production of outcomes that are integral to the knowledge production, presentation, and communication of your UDP.