Urban Design for Planners

Emily Talen teaches a six-course series exploring essential urban design concepts using open source urban design software. In “Urban Design for Planners,” a popular series of online urban design courses, students will learn how to create visualizations including analytical maps, 3D models, and 2D graphic designs using SketchUp and QGIS. Students will also gain in-depth instruction to learn to delineate a set of neighborhoods and neighborhood centers, evaluate land-use diversity in a neighborhood, and redesign local thoroughfares. This track teaches the urban design tools necessary to participate fully in the urban design process. Each course in this track is approved for CNU-A and AICP CM credit.

Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools

Urban planners and urban designers are interested in building places that embody beauty and hope. In this course, Emily Talen, PhD, FAICP, presents free urban design software tools that can help urban planners and urban designers visualize changes in the built environment to support the overarching goal of creating better places.

59 Mins
AIA CES
AICP CM
CNU-A
SACPLAN CPD

Urban Design for Planners 2: Getting Started with QGIS and SketchUp

Course instructor Emily Talen guides viewers through the process of transferring a shapefile of building outlines into SketchUp and processes of basic manipulation necessary to create a 3D model. Learn how to load data into QGIS, set the coordinate reference system, and change the graphic display of data layers.

46 Mins
AIA CES
AICP CM
CNU-A
SACPLAN CPD

Urban Design for Planners 3: Neighborhoods and Centers

This course demonstrates how to delineate neighborhoods and neighborhood centers in a given area and also illustrates a sample of neighborhood enhancing design improvements.

59 Mins
AIA CES
AICP CM
CNU-A
SACPLAN CPD

Urban Design for Planners 4: Mix and Proximity

Course instructor Emily Talen, PhD, FAICP provides step-by-step instruction on how to use data sets to visualize and map the configuration of mix and density along main commercial corridors and neighborhoods.

66 Mins
AIA CES
AICP CM
CNU-A
SACPLAN CPD

Urban Design for Planners 5: Density

Emily Talen, PhD, FAICP teaches urban design strategies for increasing density in neighborhoods and locating infill development appropriate to the context of specific neighborhoods. Talen also introduces urban design interventions proven to increase density.

64 Mins
AIA CES
AICP CM
CNU-A
SACPLAN CPD

Urban Design for Planners 6: Streetscape Design

Learn how to identify thoroughfares where traffic calming is a high priority, identify desired thoroughfare dimensions based on urban context, and redesign an existing thoroughfare.

59 Mins
AIA CES
AICP CM
CNU-A
SACPLAN CPD

Course Instructors

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