Dr. Laura Novo De Azevedo
Senior Lecturer Urban Design
Laura has a background in architecture, planning and urban design ans has been a researcher at the JCUD since 2002 where she is currently a senior lecturer. Before working in the UK she worked in Brazil teaching and consulting in architecture and urbanism. With over 10 years of practice Laura has mostly been involved in urban design projects developed through community participation in southern Brazil. She is an expert in the relationship between information technology and urban design issues, with a particular interest in developing strategies for integrating computer graphics into the process of urban design. Her main research interests focus on environmental perception, behaviour and design, cultural heritage and urba conservation and design coding. She is particularly interested in researching with children and young people to achieve more inclusive urban environments.
This paper reviews the current socio-cultural and political state of cycling in Brazil and the policies and activities over recent years that have aimed to reverse its marginalisation. In particular it focuses on the city of Pelotas in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul and the significant societal and material transformations that are causing conflict and dissonance in relation to the future role of cycling on city streets. Using a combination of empirical evidence from existing literature; a focus group with members of the cycling stakeholder forum; interviews with planning officials whilst observing cycle infrastructure; interviews with participants whilst taking part in a ‘protest’ bicycle ride (bicicletada); and on street intercept interviews with cycle commuters, this paper highlights the tensions, conflicts, aspirations and imaginaries of a city grappling with significant growth and urban transformation.
The Power of Experience
This paper reports on the pilot of the project ‘The Power of Experience: implementing and evaluating the use of a mobile approach for enhancing students’ learning in urban design, funded by an Innovative Project in Learning and Teaching grant from the Higher Education Academy Centre for Education in the Built Environment. In the project, the portability and versatility of mobile technology was used to complement traditional teaching resources to create a series of mobile lectures. A website (www.urbandesignexperience.com) was designed for hosting the mobile lectures and a wiki (https://wiki.brookes.ac.uk/display/poe/Home) was developed and used by lecturers and students involved in the project. The project was piloted in an undergraduate module in Planning at Oxford Brookes University during Semester 2 of the 2011-2011 academic year. The paper discusses the background, the development and implementation of the project and focuses on the evaluation of the impact the project has had on the student learning experience in the context of the pilot module. It ends with a series of recommendations that would encourage and facilitate the development of similar projects and a discussion of next steps necessary for the development of this project. All material on the website is open source and can be downloaded as podcasts.