Personal Semester Reflexive Summary
Looking back on this semester, I would say that this course really opened the door to a new world for me. As an undergraduate with a background in interior design, I was a bit panicked when I was first confronted with the grandiose-sounding concept of urban design. The city is so big, and I had been focusing on the interior and architecture before, but now I have to jump to a larger scale to think about the exterior space, which is indeed a bit challenging. But it was this challenge that made me discover the charm of urban design.
At the beginning of the course, I was a bit confused, as many terms sounded strange, such as 15-minute life circle, sustainable community and spatial equity, which I had never come across before. However, through the weekly lectures, reading materials and writing blogs, I slowly built up a basic understanding of urban design. I began to realize that urban design is not just about making a city look good, but more importantly about serving people, about creating a truly human-centred space from the perspective of people’s lives, travel, social interaction and so on.
Blogging is not something that is easy for me to do right from the start. I don’t really blog much in general. Coupled with the fact that English is not my first language, it was really quite a struggle to write and read at first. Often I had to open several dictionaries to look up a sentence, and I also had to find a lot of information to see how other people expressed themselves. But I feel that I have made a lot of progress, at least I dare to express my own opinions, and I know how to cite information and organize the structure of the article.
I also found that the blog is really interesting, it is not as rigid as a thesis, it is more like I am chatting with the readers and sharing my thoughts, I can add some examples, tell my own experience, or use a more relaxed tone to discuss serious issues, this kind of writing style is more expressive for me.
One thing that I particularly like is that everyone has a very diverse range of views. I read a lot of articles from students on the blog platform, some of them focus on the disadvantaged, such as children and the elderly, while others are very concerned about technological development and the future of the city. I found that there is actually no standard answer to urban design, it is more like a public discussion about lifestyle, everyone has a different perspective, and it is this diversity that makes this field rich, interesting and meaningful.
Overall, this class not only introduced me to the discipline of urban design, but more importantly, it taught me how to express myself and think about the relationship between space and people. I feel that I am no longer just a passive designer, but I am now beginning to be able to consider the connection between people, environment and society from a more macro perspective. I thank my teacher for his patience and myself for not giving up! I hope I can go farther and farther on the road of urban design in the future.
