Future Cities

Offered By: ETH Zurich via edX

Course Description

Overview

“Future Cities” is a series of urban MOOCs bringing the latest research results on planning, managing and transforming cities to those places in the world where they are needed most.

“Future Cities” provides an overview.
“Quality of Life: Livability in Future Cities” describes factors of livability in cities.
“Smart Cities” presents realistic approaches, methods and techniques to increase the sustainability and resilience of cities.

Reponsive Cities

" explore the future of urbanization as you learn about responsive Cities, ones that bring the city back to their citizens.

Our long-term goal is to make the “Future Cities” series on urban MOOCs the worldwide first and complete series of urban courses dealing with the design, management and transformation of cities for their sustainable and resilient future. This leads to a modular collection of urban MOOCs for each part of the urban system. The first overview course “Future Cities” opens a holistic view on existing and future cities. Each following urban MOOC increases in depth and in specialization.

Syllabus

Courses under this program:
Course 1: Smart Cities

Learn how data and information impact the design, sustainability and resilence of future cities.

Course 2: Future Cities

Understand a city’s people, components, functions, scales and dynamics, as precondition for its sustainable design and management.

Course 3: Quality of Life: Livability in Future Cities

Learn how urban planning, energy, climate, ecology and mobility impact the livability and quality of life of a “future city.”

Course 4: Responsive Cities

Explore the future of urbanization as you learn about responsive Cities, ones that bring the city back to their citizens.

Courses

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11 weeks, 2-3 hours a week, 2-3 hours a week
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Cities are becoming the predominant living and working environment of humanity, and for this reason, livability or quality of life in the city has become crucial.

This urban planning course will focus on four areas that directly affect livability in a city: Urban energy, urban climate, urban ecology and urban mobility. The course begins by presenting measurable criteria for the assessment of livability, and how to positively influence the design of cities towards greater livability. We will focus on this basic topic of the human habitat in a holistic way, and introduce possibilities of participatory urban design by citizens, leading towards the development of a citizen design science.

You will be able to share your experiences with the other participants in the course and also with the experts from the teaching team. In completing this course, you will better understand how to make a city more livable by going beyond the physical appearance and by focusing on different properties and impact factors of the urban system.

Livability in Future Cities is the second course in a series of MOOCs under the title “Future Cities.” This series aims to bring the latest research on planning, managing and transforming cities to places where this knowledge has the highest benefit for its citizens. “Future Cities” provided an overview, and this course will focus on livability in existing and new cities.
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10 weeks, 2-6 hours a week, 2-6 hours a week
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Responsive cities define the future of urbanization. They evolve from smart cities, with a fundamental difference: The citizens move from the center of attention to the center of action. Responsive citizens use smart technology to contribute to planning, design and management of their cities.

Responsive cities are about bringing cities back to their citizens. Responsive cities change the way the technology of a smart city is used. The first Smart Cities were technology driven and they produced large amounts of data from fixed or centrally controlled sensors. But by now, the citizens and their mobile phones have taken the leading role in direct data generation. Rather than using data that are centrally collected and stored, you will see platforms on which the citizens place the data and the information they decide to share. With this, your own responsibility becomes a foundation of a Responsive City. Cities evolve from being smart to being responsive.

To demonstrate the potential of Responsive Cities, this course will define the concept of Citizen Design Science, a combination of Citizen Design, Citizen Science and Design Science. Experts, citizens and scientists participate in Citizen Design Science. This approach is still in an early stage of development, but with the Responsive Cities Massive Open Online Course, you will be ahead in exploring and defining its possibilities.

‘Responsive cities’ is the fourth edition of the ‘Future Cities’ series on urban MOOCs. The ‘Future Cities’ series is the first and complete series of urban courses dealing with the design, management and transformation of cities for their sustainable and resilient future. With every edition, the series becomes more interactive. It increasingly empowers citizens around the world to become part of the development of their own cities, especially in those places where this knowledge is needed most. Therefore, the course is inclusive for every individual interested in the planning, construction, redevelopment and management of future cities. The course is open to anyone regardless of background, skills, knowledge, or age.

Taught by

Lai Choo Malone-Lee, Kees Christiaanse, Ina Homeier, Corine Mauch, Kevin Schawinski, Christoph Hölscher, Dirk Helbing, Bige Tunçer, Markus Schläpfer, Matthias Standfest, Gerhard Schmitt, Dirk Hebel, Reinhard König, Bernhard Klein, Marcel Brülisauer, Chen Zhong, Peter Edwards, Jane Jacobs, Stephen Cairns, Jan Carmeliet, Matthias Roth, Alex Erath, Matthias Berger, Ulrike Wissen Hayek, Estefania Tapias and Renate Schubert