Zones shape everyday urban life, but what happens when we start to reshape them? Urban Design Project 2 encourages us to collectively consider how zones can be re(con)figured and what the cost might be. Not all zones need restructuring. For example, removing a business zone might imply more liberal rights for the city, but what would this mean for shopkeepers who are already struggling with digitalisation and changing consumption patterns?

These are design matters and not simply questions of aesthetics or density, but also of the ontological implications of designing worlds (Willis, 2012), the radial interdependence and relationality that constitute them (Escobar, 2018), and what it means to 'design back from the future' (Willis and Fry, 2025), in order to consider possible unintended consequences and overflows in complex, more-than-human urban landscapes (Baxter et al., 2025; Tsing et al., 2019). In UDP2, we will engage with modes of critical design theory to retool spatial design through ongoing experimentation, testing, speculation and critical reflection on the reconfiguration of the urban zones.

References:

Baxter, J-S, Heinrich, A.J., Marguin, S., Sommer, V., (2025) Multiple Spacetimes and How They Matter, in Baxter et al. (Eds), Spacetimes Matter: A Collection of Mapping Methodologies. Berlin, Jovis
Escobar, A. (2018). Designs for the Pluriverse: Radical Interdependence, Autonomy, and the Making of Worlds. Duke University Press.
Tsing, A. L., Mathews, A. S., & Bubandt, N. (2019). Patchy Anthropocene: Landscape structure, multispecies history, and the retooling of anthropology: An introduction to supplement 20. Current Anthropology, 60(S20), S186-S197.
Willis, A.M. and Fry, T (2025) Future-Risk Mapping, in Baxter et al. (Eds), Spacetimes Matter: A Collection of Mapping Methodologies. Berlin, Jovis
Willis, A. M. (2012). The Ontological Designing of Mapping. Design Philosophy Papers, 10(2), 95-104.