b'MUDD 25 - Urban Intensity l Urban Design - Sydneyurban intensity seen as the condition created byof water sensitive urban design and the 2016 directive compactness, density, diversity and connectivityof the China State Council to create more fine-grained in physical terms (Guan & Rowe 2016), and as apatterns of urban development and more human-scaled concentration of opportunities in social terms, playedurban spaces (Kan, Forsyth & Rowe 2019; Yu & others out in the imperatives and challenges of everyday life. (2015). These national policies must be considered among the most significant underpinnings of urban In 2019-2020 we explored the theme of Urban Intensitydesign as public policy in the world today.| Urban Design in a series of Sydney Studios critically engaged with the challenge of urban consolidation andTo see the emerging inter-relationship of urban design densification along a transect stretching north fromand urban development in todays China, reinforces the the suburban setting of Arncliffe on the Cooks River, tothinking that has formed the basis of the UNSW MUDD the inner ring regeneration area of Green Square, theProgram since its foundation. central city business district of North Sydney, and the former weekender communities on Brisbane Water,First the focus on urban development in our double D now dormitory suburbs on the urban periphery, threateddegree, considering development processes at urban by the effect of climate change on sea-level rise.scale essential to the theory and practice of the field. This approach embraces the overarching role of cities In the MUDD25 International Studios, which wereas engines of economic growth and change, and the undertaken in China, we explored the Urban Intensity |specific role of property development in the circuit of Urban Design theme in Beijing, studying the recurringcapital, the process of investment and disinvestment in reality of the Chinese city expanding over rural villagesthe fixed capital of the built environment. on its periphery. In Hangzhou, we studied the urban transformation of industrial sites dating from the earlySecond, projection of the power of design, defined by years of the Chinese revolution, today largely obsoleteHerbert Simon as the purposeful transformation of and abandoned, posing formidable challenges inexisting conditions into preferred ones (Simon 1969). remediation and re-design for high-density residential,In this definition, design involves change, it involves commercial and cultural uses. Both the Beijingdirected change. It involves a deep understanding and Hangzhou projects were charged with specialof existing conditions, an imaginative process of significance, located at the northern and southern endsdetermining preferred ones, and a purposeful means of respectively of the UNESCO World Heritage listed Grandmoving from one to the other.Canal, 1800 kilometres long, principally a legacy of the Ming Dynasty but with some sections formed as early asThird, the integration through design of three bodies of the 5th Century BC. knowledge about the city:We returned to China for the MUDD International spatial political economy, the manifestation in Studios in our 25th year for two reasons. First to meeturban form of global patterns of investment and up with and honour our largest group of graduates,disinvestment;our students from China, now successful, enthusiastic, urban design principles and paradigms, normative interconnected as a remarkable group on digital media,models of good city form grounded in aesthetic, and engaged with the pace and scale of urbanisationsocial and environmental concerns; and, that inspired the MUDD Program in the first place. urban design as public policy, the intersection of Second, to become familiar with recent city-makingpublic policy, design principles, the deal-making of initiatives that have begun to integrate urban designthe property sector and defence of the public realm.into the formal processes of Chinese city planning (Jin 2019). These initiatives, aimed at creating more liveable,In this 25th Anniversary Yearbook, two of my fellow ecologically resilient urban environments, include thefounders of the MUDD ProgramEmeritus Professor national commitment in 2013 to Sponge City principlesAlexander Cuthbert and Emeritus Professor Bruce 4P1-20200229-FOLIOINTRO.indd9 2020/3/810:25:19'