Urban Design as a profession first emerged in the United States and Europe as a supposed bridging profession between Architects and Planners. The intention was to create professionals that can intervene at an urban scale with a spatial and aesthetic lens. But the
discipline of Urban Design has today evolved to include many other aspects and it gets further complicated when we think about Urban Design practice in the context of the global south and India in particular. The pedagogy of Urban Design does and should reflect this diversity of practice and the ‘Thesis’ becomes an important tool as it is the culmination project for a student before they become professionals. Traditionally, the thesis has been an exploration of framing the urban question and designing the structure plan of possible solutions. But can the thesis also be an opportunity to think about implementation?
Compared to Architecture or Urban Planning, the practice of Urban Design is far less regulated by the State and there is no one set way of practicing it. The thesis therefore has the potential to explore different ways of practice.
The Urban Dialogue 2023 has been centered on exploring this idea of Urban Design practice and the role and form that the thesis can take with its implications on pedagogy. The different theses will be used as a stepping stone to discuss how we can move ahead after the design proposition and can the designing of the implementation process become the thesis. Urban Design constitutes many issues and fields and so for a more focused discussion, the theses have been organized on three themes – working in the Public Realm ,
Culture and Identity, and Ecology.