//week five - assignment breakdown and research

Group members:
Conor Todd
Guro Aanestad
Prue Dabelstein

City - Chur, Switzerland

Chur, Switzerland

From doing a quick search of maps we found out that Chur in Switzerland is the oldest city in switzerland, it is surrounded by mountains that you can ski on, it has a large railway that goes through the city up to the mountains (alpine city), there are many churches and the streets are very narrow.

things to include in our research panel:
- maps (nolie, history and mobility)
- written component
- model of city

Facts about Rhine River:
- means to flow
- route for goods and trades inland to switzerland 
- boarders Switzerland and Germany
- suffered from pollution in germany in the past

 Section of Chur my group is focusing on where old meets new

reflection... in the tutorial i really enjoyed searching for maps and doing research for our chosen city of Chur. From images we could find the city is very beautiful and one of the oldest in Switzerland. The city has a very interesting aerial view which gave us some information on how the city may have formed. By looking at the main roads and shapes from an aerial view our group gathered that Chur was an organically formed city with not many straight roads. As you can see from the map at the top of this post which shows the whole of Chur you can see a main train lines that go right through the center of the city, possibly suggesting that it is a city in which you pass through to get to the alps or something of the like. One of the most interesting part of the city which my group is going to focus on is the southeast corner of the city below the main train lines. Just above is an image of this section. Our group found this section of the city particularly interesting due to the very obvious separation of areas, where an old city meets a newer part of the city (the southeast corner being the old city).

MAIN ROUNDABOUT FROM OLD TO NEW CHUR

http://www.travelpod.ca

PROTECTED BY MOUNTAINS

http://mystoryabroad.com/johnhuston/

OLD CITY

http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/29312/a9035/

Cuthbert explains that 'urban design is either 'architecture writ large' or 'urban planing writ small' (2003). I found this analogy of urban design interesting as it places the profession smack bang in the middle of urban planing and architecture. Yet Cuthbert writes that it is not recognized for either. I believe that urban planners, as they already deal with similar scales to urban designers, should merge professions so that planners who are not recognized for design will become proficient in both. Urban design and urban planning have many overlapping sections which is why in my opinion makes it hard to distinguish and individualize the two professions. If i was to define urban design i would say that it is almost the same as urban planning although urban design deals more with the city in a three dimensional aspect as well as designing spaces appropriate for the people. Even after trying to define urban design as its own entity i still think that merging urban planning and design would be the simple solution, although i could be a little naive of the situation.  

Cuthbert, A. R. (2003). Designing cities : critical readings in urban design. Malden, MA,
Oxford : Blackwell Pub.