Course Programme

WK 1-3 / LEARNING FROM ROTTERDAM / 6 FEB - 24 FEB 2023
During the first weeks, participants will be introduced to the School and to the city of Rotterdam. Through expeditions and lectures, look at the city from various perspectives and become familiar with different disciplines and crafts. You will explore the physical but also the invisible realities of the urban landscape while meeting different professionals within the network of the School, whose diverse backgrounds, works, experience and opinions will sharpen your own thinking. In these first weeks you will be learning from Rotterdam while critically reflecting on the trends and developments that influence the city, while developing the first ideas of your own project.

WK 4-5 / LIFE IN A SUPERDIVERSE CITY / 27 FEB - 10 MAR 2023
Because of the port and its connection with the rest of the globe, Rotterdam has attracted people from all over the world for decades already. Nowadays over 170 different nationalities call the city their home. The population has become so diverse that Rotterdam has become part of a worldwide family of Majority-Minority cities – meaning that more than half of the population has a migration background. And, not just the number of nationalities has increased: as generations pass, also the diversity within the different migrant groups has become increasingly complex. This Superdiversity, makes the city interesting, dynamic and attractive, but also creates social tensions. There are huge differences in income, housing situation and development opportunities between the various groups in the city, which is beginning to show signs of segregation. During these two weeks, we aimed to understand this Superdiverse reality by looking at the city through different eyes. We will go out in the streets with various people. While observing and talking to strangers on the street, we aim to reveal the hidden dynamics of daily life.   

WK 6 / NO EDUCATION / 13 MAR – 17 MAR 2023

WK7- 8 THE ANTHROPOCENE / 20 MAR– 31 MAR 2023
Just as many cities around the world, Rotterdam has the ambition to become green, sustainable and resilient. All around the city we see projects being developed to transform this car-dominated city, into an attractive and green environment for all its inhabitants, while simultaneously aiming to increase awareness about climate change and sea-level rise. But is it enough? During this thematic block, we’ll dive into the Anthropocene – the geological era marking the dominant human impact on the Earth systems. Through four philosophical viewpoints that one can have of this age of mankind, and while confronting the causes and effects of climate change, biodiversity loss, land-use change et cetera, we will try to bring the effects of our actions close to home, literally and painfully. We’ll use our collective knowledge and imagination to improve, layer and enrich our worldview, to understand our own cities and countries and to develop our own position vis a vis the new normal of the and how we as humans need or want to act.

WK 9 - 11 / POSITION AND STRATEGIZE / 03 April – 21 April
During these weeks, you will take the step from research and observations, to further developing your own project. Time to organise your thoughts and reflect on the ideas and stories that emerged during the previous weeks. Which conflicts did you discovered? What issue or problem do you want to engage with? What position do you want to take as an urban professional? And how do you see the future of the city? We ask you to strengthen your position and to identify what strategy is needed to reach your ultimate goal: you can write an article, make a short movie, design an object or a campaign, plan a landscape or plan a revolution. As long as it is in line with your position and puts your research results to the best use.

WK 12 / PRESENT / 24 April – 28 April
Time to show your work to the world! The Independent School will organise a final collective event around the opening of the exhibition and invite the leaders of the City to see what has been produced and to react to it. We’ll show Rotterdam what we’ve got and finish this intensive programme with a bang!

METHODOLOGY

The course will use the Independent School for the City’s methodological triad of Research, Stories,  Strategies Action!

#RESEARCH
Through lectures by the best experts, precisely planned excursions through Rotterdam and mapping exercises, we will uncover the invisible layers of the city, look at sites through various lenses and collect the data needed to take a position vis-à-vis the city’s challenges. We will look at the city as a palimpsest of different systems, ideas, infrastructures, policies and ideologies. Each time, we 'll consider Rotterdam as a means to get a close-up view of global trends and networks.

#STORIES
To share our position on the city with others, in order to turn it into action, we need to construct a strong narrative. That is the subject of the second week dedicated to each theme. Lectures and workshops will be held on the different formats and techniques, the different languages and methods with which a story can be told. From the written manifesto to the exhibition, the political campaign to the utopian plan, the movie to the historical essay. We will discover how a narrative approach not only carries the message we want to share but will shape and influence it too. Through the stories we tell, we start to change the reality of our cities.

#STRATEGIES
The next step is to translate your insights and stories into an urban strategy. Working on the city is not value-free and can only be done together with others. We challenge participants to take a clear position and to actively relate to the city. In order to realize ambitions, partners and money are needed, politicians and local residents have to be included, or activism is necessary. Within a development strategy we describe the steps necessary to achieve our goals.

#ACTION
The last step is to design a concrete action. We have a broad view of what action is. It can be a drawing or a precisely written and timed manifesto. A poster campaign or government-funded master plan; the construction of a prototype or a tactical policy change. An active group of residents can sometimes have just as much impact on the shape of a street as an iconic piece of architecture. With an action we take the first step in the implementation of a strategy and we try to land our ideas in the 'real world'. The programme will conclude with an exhibition and a conversation with researchers, planners and politicians who have been entrusted with Rotterdam’s future.