RePIC CityLab Rotterdam

Background

Cities are by definition artificial human environments: typical urban elements like streets, buildings and squares are made with materials such as asphalt, bricks, steel, stone and glass. Cities are hence tangible objects with a very concrete materiality. Consequently, urban transformations in post-industrial cities are primarily understood as a process of reshaping the tangible aspects of urban environments− as the word trans-form-a(c)tion suggests – like tearing down old buildings, repaving roads, and redesigning squares and buildings. 

And yet, cities are also composed by intangible elements, which are often invisible or not immediately perceptible. Policy narratives and storytelling can greatly shape urban transformations, and hide certain aspects while emphasising others. In our everyday experience of post-industrial urban environments, we might not be aware of sensors and antennas scattered around the city and that are collecting, real-time, data about us. Or we might not perceive invisible boundaries between neighbourhoods, and superficially abandoned buildings can host vibrant community spaces. Moreover, some key urban elements, like water or sewage infrastructure, are carefully hidden from sight and placed underground, but can also be emphasised and become an urban landmark.

About CityLab Rotterdam

The CityLab Rotterdam invites students to go beyond the appearances of city materiality and urban transformations and, instead, perceive the urban beyond its surface of what is visible. What is made visible and even emphasised, and what is hidden or toned down? And how can we fine-tune our senses to perceive the multiple (and secret?) codes and messages that are co-existing in post-industrial cities?

To reply to these questions, the CityLab Rotterdam provides three tracks to allow students to explore the continuum (or tension?) between visible and invisible, tangible and intangible dimensions of urban transformations and experiences in post-industrial cities. During the CityLab Rotterdam, students will perform city investigations by applying methodologies that are specifically tailored to train our ability to perceive how the urban environment “looks” like (or “smell,”, “sounds,” etc.) and to adjust our senses to detect aspects and frequencies that are not immediately apparent.

Track overview and summary

Building on the CityLab’s core focus on the visibility and invisibility of urban transformations and experiences, we propose three tracks, each overseen by two members of the organising committee, and aligned with the four main tracks of RePIC as per short descriptions below. 

Beyond the visible/invisible continuum, the three tracks might explore other continua, such as tangible/intangible, local/global, inside/outside, before/after, below/under, included/excluded, and whose selective combination characterises each track. 

Preliminary programme

Students will work in groups to explore and analyse the in/visible dimensions as they manifest in post-industrial urban environments by following theory and method lectures, participating in both guided and independent urban explorations, and by submitting a short video as a group assignment. In the last day of the CityLab (Friday 11th September), students will finalise their presentations on their on-going assignment and present them at the closing event of the CityLab.

Assignment

The ability to effectively and meaningfully communicate specialised knowledge to a wider public is an essential skill in our highly complex and diverse contemporary societies. How to convey specialised knowledge to general audiences and practitioners on different aspects characterising post-industrial cities by presenting both abstract and concrete information, and without overtly simplifying the complexity of the urban?