PLAN 2020

This has been one of my favorite courses. I really enjoyed getting to work through the full planning process from not knowing anything about the site to developing a detailed set of recommendations and plan for implementation. The studio is divided up into different topics and each one is a group. Group work is something that stresses me out, so I was concerned about the whole semester being based on group work. Be sure you pick a good group from day one. There is the opportunity to switch groups after the first module, but the semester will be easier and flow better if you choose to stick with the same topic/group. Professor Guerra was fantastic to work with and gave great feedback during desk critiques. Make sure you have changes in your work from class to class that you can point to. Nothing disappointed Professor Guerra more than when a group showed up to class with nothing different from the previous critique. Also, be sure to use your studio time productively. It is a great time to work with your groupmates, and it is less work you have to do outside of class.

This almost cannot be called an urban planning class. As the first studio, this class has been focusing on the Maré favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for the past two or three years now. As the first planning studio for planning students, I actually do not see a problem with it being in Brazil, per se, because we really have not had a core class that taught us any technical knowledge about the U.S. anyway. A studio set in a different country does not make a big difference.

My big qualm with this class is the desk critique. As long as you have generally the narrative or content the professor is looking for, Prof. Guerra would not critique your content at all, and the visual representation is the part focused on the most in this class. Visualization is also an important skill for planners, and I have really begun to see the importance of and improve my visual representation skills in ArcGIS and Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop over this semester (a good conjunction with PLAN 2110 - Digital Visualization). However, make sure you find good groupmates to work on the project together and delineate roles and responsibilities clearly. This class does test groupwork quite a lot, and usually, the person who has to lay out everything on Illustrator does the most work. People can split up work to do on Illustrator, but one person in the end still has to consolidate everything together.

Overall, the class is three big A1-sized posters to make over a semester, and that is all that you are doing! Prof. Guerra can always find something to improve in your poster, and my group, to be honest, just followed all her critiques and sort of never made our own original great representations. I learned a lot despite being rather frustrated with the topic (you will find that Maré is a rather hopelessly neglected community by the government despite all its volunteering and civic organizations).