ABSTRACT
Practice in urban design takes many forms. Because it is a hybrid field drawing the expertise of disciplines across the built environment professions, we find urban designers practicing in the private, public, and institutional sectors. From the foundation of the field in the late 1950s, tension has existed within the field between the disciplines that consider urban design its particular territory. While architecture and planning both have legitimate historic claims to the field, we increasingly see landscape architects, real estate developers, civil engineers, and politicians assuming larger roles in urban design practice. As such, practice in the field is increasingly collaborative: teams of professionals work together on large contracted projects that no single firm could possibly staff itself – design professionals by default are forced to work with developers, communities, public works departments, and government officials to get projects implemented. Despite the various antipathies and pre-dispositions found in design schools (where the disciplines often find difficulty working together), those in practice are finding ways to work together.
