Planning Procedures

Aiming at experiencing the actual world, the course outlines a road map of the course taken by an architect’s plan, from the moment it leaves the draftsboard until it is formally approved.

The students make acquaintance with the established planning bodies by attending planning commission meetings, understanding key-words and guided reading of protocols, they analyze plans, procedures of objection and critique and current planning issues, leaning on the language used for submitting plans and on the building and planning law, learn the planning process and the planning data systems. Eventually they take part in a simulation game as members of a planning commission.

The course deals with the planning levels, from the national level through the district and local levels and ending with the building permit, it discusses national planning policies and concepts such as programs and allotments, parking standards, Allocations for public purposes, blend of uses, density, planning public transport and many more.

The syllabus includes planning conflicts such as national and local objectives, national and local infrastructure systems, dilemmas and practices of public participation and the influence of third sector.

Finally, the course aims at accomplishing the ability to translate from the language of imagination to the language of the plan, offering tools for transforming visions into reality by skillfully making use of the established planning tools, mainly the land-use directives and regulations.