Extract

Urban design is practised by teams integrating a wide range of knowledge
fields embracing many aspects of human endeavour and it is applied at all
scales of development in the built environment. There is an expectation that
urban design adds value that is measurable and accountable in the public
domain. But who are urban designers and what do they need to know?
The paper aims to fill a gap in the knowledge of the field of urban design and
the scope of urban design education that prepares those practitioners who
identify as urban designers.

After briefly outlining historical trends, the first section of the paper scopes the
literature around the evolution of the discipline of urban design and
extrapolates some key issues for current practice. The second section is
devoted to a critical evaluation of data gathered in Australia and New Zealand
aimed at positioning urban design practitioners in the context of the needs of
the emerging discipline. The final section provides some guidelines for expert
urban design practitioners and educators with a focus on the scope of current
theoretical knowledge to be embraced with the emerging systematic body of
practice knowledge.

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