What is Urban Design, and what skills do I need?

To put it simply, Urban Design is the name given to the job of designing places. 

You can read books about it, study it, and call yourself an Urban Designer. But Urban Design isn’t really a profession, it’s an approach to working. It’s a broad movement that attracts many different people and professionals such as: 

• Developers.
• Local communities.
• Architects and landscape architects.
• Town and transport planners.
• Traffic engineers.
• Public Health officials.

It’s also not just about the design of urban places. Urban Design is a way of working that can be equally effective in any setting, including suburbs, market towns, villages, and other rural places – in fact anywhere that has buildings and spaces between them. We argue that the need to integrate new development with what’s already there exists everywhere, so too does the need for urban design.

This strong association with urban places partially explains the popularity of terms such as placemaking to explain what urban designers do. Above all, urban design is all about team work. This notion of designing places relying on a collective effort, rather than individual endeavour, makes perfect sense when we consider what it takes to fully understand a place, to see all the opportunities, and resolve problems and conflicts to create better places for everyone. Whether someone is working as a town planner, politician, traffic engineer, or public health official, they should also feel that they belong to the collective design team.

When it comes to answering the question ‘what skills are needed to make positive contributions to the design of places?’, we have already said that it is a collaborative effort, involving a wide range of people and professionals, each bringing their own skillset and perspectives. Some of these people will be designers in the conventional sense, but not everyone will think of themselves as a designer. Everyone participating in the design of places should share a willingness, understanding, and awareness of the following core skills:

Collaboration

A capacity to think creatively and constructively across professional disciplines, and work with a range of people including the general public, politicians, and the public and private sectors.

Context

An ability to see and understand the attributes of places and make contributions within the context of the place in which you’re working.

Spatial awareness

A willingness to work and think about design over a range of spatial scales: 

• Strategic (whole place)
• Neighbourhood
• Human (detail)

There’s also a need for awareness of how actions and decisions will have an impact on the physical form and character of new developments.

Communication

A willingness to give physical form to ideas and/or work together with people who can help you do so. Some people are well-suited to the creation of detailed, scaled depictions of proposed designs, either by hand or using computer software, but not being skilled at drawing should not prevent people from contributing their creativity and problem-solving in other ways.

Functionality

An understanding that design is not only about aesthetic properties (how it looks) but is as much about functional aspects (how it works). This includes understanding both natural and man-made processes, the needs of people, and nature.

Inclusivity

Awareness of the need to protect those who will be relatively disadvantaged by change and ensure places of the future embody diversity and equity.

Remember that you don’t need to be an expert to contribute to the design of places. You just need to have a mix of the skills described above, and you just need to be willing to learn.

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