The COVID-19 pandemic has become a critical challenge for the higher education sector. Exploring the capacity of this sector to adapt in the state of uncertainty has become more significant than ever. In this paper, we critically reflect on our experience of teaching urban design research methods online during the early COVID-19 lockdown in the UK. This is an exploratory case study with a qualitative approach with an aim to inform resilient practices of teaching in the face of public health emergencies. Drawing on the experience of teaching the Research Methods and Techniques subject during lockdown, we discuss the rapid transition from face-to-face to online teaching and point to the challenges and opportunities in relation to the learning and teaching activities, assessment and feedback, and digital platforms. This paper concludes by outlining some key considerations to inform the development of more adaptive and resilient approaches to online teaching in the context of unprecedented global health crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic. We argue that it is critical to move beyond fixed pedagogical frameworks to harness the productive capacities of adaptive teaching.

Students’ learning experiences and perceptions are markedly influenced by the use of digital technology during the COVID-19 pandemic. Exploring students’ perception of blended online learning, amid the adaptations of the higher education sector in the wake of uncertainty, has become more critical than ever. This paper reflects on the experience of learning and teaching the Research Methods and Techniques subject in the postgraduate programme of MA Urban Design at Cardiff University during COVID-19 in the UK. To do so, we designed and carried out an online survey to explore students’ perception of online teaching and learning activities, feedback and assessment, and digital platforms based on their experience during the subject delivery period in the 2020–2021 academic year. One of the significant findings of this paper was that students agreed with the impact of eye contact on their virtual learning experience but as long as this was aligned with their rights to see others, including their peers and instructors, rather than reciprocal rights to be seen. In addition, students felt that facilitating synchronous communication through effective interaction among diverse peers has been quite challenging in small-group online reading seminars. The majority of respondents also reported that attending live online lectures was more helpful than watching pre-recorded lectures. Online formative feedback and synchronous interim reviews also allowed students to reflect on their progress and develop their projects further before their summative assessment. The outcomes of this paper can effectively assist educators who consider delivering programmes, adopting a blended online learning environment design model, in the post COVID-19 era. The findings of this study can also provide guidance for further developments and improvements in using digital technology and blended online learning in urban design education and pedagogy.

Within the past decade, there has been a surge of interest in investigating the dynamics of informal street vending, motivated by the need to address economic, social, and political inequalities. We take stock of this literature, bringing together the various streams of research in which informal street vending is integral to how cities work, particularly in the context of what is considered as the global South. The review of the related literature in this paper is structured into eight key themes, including (1) gender, (2) typology/types, (3) spatiality of street vending and public space design, (4) health and well-being, (5) individual/collective agency, (6) policy environment, (7) use of technology, and (8) links to other forms of informality. The paper concludes by outlining certain research themes that are in the process of development, identifying some understudied areas, reflecting on existing gaps, and pointing to future research directions to enable further engagement with those aspects of informal street vending research that have remained underexplored.

This paper engages with how the incremental production of space works in informal settlements. As one of the critical challenges of urbanism in the cities of the global South, informal settlements cannot be simply addressed through ruthless practices of demolition and eviction since they can often be incrementally upgraded on the same site. Such practices of upgrading rely on a sophisticated understanding of how urban morphology and adaptation work in informal settlements. In this paper, I focus on the fluidity of space by drawing on a case study of an informal settlement in Pune, India. The key research methods are observation and visual recording. The results of this study provide a better understanding of how informal settlements work in terms of urban morphologies and adaptations. Such an understanding plays a significant role in exploring how the capacities of informality can be developed in consistency with the incremental upgrading of codes regarding public open space, access network, construction, and functional mix. This paper contributes to the ways in which built environment professions can effectively engage with incremental transformations of informal settlements.

Street trading has become integral to how public space works in cities of the global South. It cannot be considered as marginal since it gears to the urban economy and works as a key mode of income generation for the urban poor to sustain livelihoods. A poor understanding of how forms of street trading work in public space can lead to poor design and policy interventions. While many practices of formalization aim at the elimination of informality, the challenge is to explore the complex informal/formal relations and the dynamics of street trading to understand how forms of informality negotiate space and visibility in the public realm. In this paper, we propose a typology of street trading, based on the criteria of mobility within public space and proximity to public/private urban interfaces. While exploring the degrees of mobility in informal street trading can be crucial to the modes of governance and adaptability involved, of critical importance is to investigate how street trading takes place in relation to the built form—particularly the edges of public space where public/private interfaces enable or constrain exchange and appropriation. The developed typology provides a better understanding of the dynamics of street trading and contributes to the ways in which the built environment professions can most effectively engage with interventions in public space without eradicating the scope for informal adaptations.