Planning Students’ Conceptions of Research

This study examines the conceptualizations of planning research by more than two hundred Master’s students enrolled in planning schools located throughout four continents. The study is set in the context of theories on the two main traditions of planning thought: “planning as a social science” and “planning as design.” The findings reveal that...

Learning from Darwin: What can the man who wrote ‘The Origin of Species’ teach us about a scientific attitude & academic writing skills?

By reading Darwin's introduction in the classic ‘The Origin of Species’, we learn about a scientific attitude and about text structure and style. This is an exercise on academic writing skills prepared for the methodology course of the Urbanism master track at the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment of the TU Delft.

The great planning game: Exploring the variety of values and worldviews in planning

This game explores different styles of spatial planning and different “types” of planners. The objective of this game is to make planning student sensitive to the variety of planning styles around the world. The types of planners described here (rather humorously) are based on the meticulous research conducted by Karina Sehested from the...

Teaching for Urbanism: A Didactical Experience in a Newly Academicized Area

This paper describes a didactical experience in the Masters course of the Department of Urbanism of the Delft University of Technology (The Netherlands) and issues related to the academicization of its curriculum. Although urbanism is a firmly established discipline in many curricula, in The Netherlands it has entered higher education as a...