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Note: Masters level course, open for incomings in 5th or higher semester Important: Participation in the first session is mandatory. We aim for a balanced distribution of students from different programmes.

Public passenger transport is an essential element of sustainable urban and regional development. "Urban" means a concentration and mix of different functions in space. The triumph of the automobile since the 1950s made it possible to extend built-up space to the detriment of urbanity and density. The consequences today are long commute distances, high infrastructure costs, unpleasant public spaces and an increasing burden on the environment in metropolitan regions. Public transport makes a significant contribution to reversing this development.

However, efficient public transport requires a compact urban form. Vice versa, a densified urban district requires well-functioning public transport. Urban development following this pattern is called Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) or integrated urban and transport planning. Analytically, TOD can be understood using Bertolini's (1999) Node-Place model. The assumption is that a balanced development of an area means that at each public transport station the accessibility by public transport and the urban functional density should match. The higher the accessibility of a public transport station, the denser the surrounding district should be (in terms of both built density and functions). Hence, transit-oriented development entails environmental, social, economic, and urban design advantages.

Often the extension of transport infrastructure enables the development of new urban areas. However, the improvement of the quality of the existing network through the addition of missing connections and transfer options can be of even greater importance. These can contribute to a redistribution of travel routes and the emergence of tangential pathways that can relieve monocentrically-organised public transport systems. The redistribution of accessibility within the system in turn can create new opportunities for re-densification.

In this seminar we look at each semester a selected case study from the Munich area, for which the development of public transport new opportunities for urban development arise.

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The course is made up of three formats: seminars, guest lectures, and a full-day charrette. In the seminar, basic concepts are conveyed and the task is introduced. The three guest lectures and the final discussion convey exemplaric approaches from practice. In the charrette, students apply contents of the seminar through the development of an individual urban design solution.

In the course of the seminar, students should devise a strategic design to develop the case study area. The work is structured in three phases:

1. Analysis of the case study area, considering transport linkages on multiple spatial scales, spatio-functional properties and urban qualities,
2. Charrette with the aim of a strategic development concept, including
a. mobility linkages, also considering pedestrians and cyclists,
b. measures in the built environment and functional arrangement,
c. propositions for use and design of public spaces,
3. Documentation of results of analysis and charrette.