Development Planning Unit
SummerLab 2012 Series
International Workshops
CALL FOR APPLICATIONS

Bucharest, Zurich, Rome
APPLICATION DEADLINES:
11.06 (Bucharest)
02.07 (Zurich)
30.07 (Rome)
UCL University College of London
Bartlett School, Faculty of the Built Environment
DPU Development Planning Unit


The UCL Development Planning Unit is proud to announce the launch of its SummerLab 2012 series coordinated by Dr. Camillo Boano, William Hunter, Anna Schulenburg and Giorgio Talocci. 
Drawing on the extensive resources of the DPU in collaboration with local partners in various host cities, DPU SummerLab leverages the reality of the city as a laboratory for developing socially responsive design measures that provoke, stimulate, strategize, and reconsider the role of designers in promoting spatial justice.
The workshop dates are:

BUCHAREST | FUZZY URBANISM
23-28.07.2012
with Pietro Elisei (Planum/Urbasofia) and Maria Duda (Spiru Haret University)
• Bucharest SummerLab will attempt to spell out the immanent contradictions of the city’s fuzzy development, interpreting the present tensions and conflicts and offering an alternative possibility of transformation: the clashing interests on the site of the new Cathedral and their possible alternatives will become the metonym of a possible wider urban strategy, attentive of the many heterogeneous realities of the city aimed at writing a new common narrative for its urban fabric. 

ZURICH | LIMINAL CONTOURS
6-11.08.2012
with Ben Leclair-Paquet (ETH Zurich) and Sarah Nichols (ETH Ziruch)
• Zurich SummerLab will ground itself in this micro region of Zurich, investigating the thresholds of suspect activity, and the resulting spaces that manifest through the existing drug trade, its interplay with various forms of prostitution and a multi-cultural demographic. We wish to seek and develop, through the employment of critical site mapping and socially creative analysis, strategic design interventions that question and address the current trends of urbanism in these somewhat “outsider” districts.

ROME | OCCUPATION CITY
10-15.09.2012
with Francesco Careri (Stalker /LAC/ Roma Tre University) and Laboratorio Arti Civiche
• Rome summerLab will navigate into this gated archipelago, exploring also its interstitial spaces through a transurbance experience. Along with a few important examples of social housing in Rome, including the famous Corviale, several squat-occupied spaces will be visited, meeting their inhabitants and trying to interpret their personal and collective visions. The participants will be asked to work and develop design oriented responses at different scales.

DPU summerLab seeks to establish a unique rotating platform for in situ immersion and experimentation in urban environments where the boundaries of spatial agency are actively tested, hinging upon critical analysis and spatial knowledge development targeting undergraduate and graduate students as well as emerging professionals in design, architecture and planning. The workshops offer a vital testing ground for the resolution of spatial interventions with local socio-economic trends alongside embedded political contexts.

IMPORTANT INFORMATIONS
• The participation fee for each workshop is £500.
• If a participant registers for multiple workshops, the fee will be reduced to £950 for two and £1350 for all three workshops.
• These fees do not include travel or accommodation, though advice and information can be provided.
• Application deadlines: 11 June (Bucharest), 2 July (Zurich), 30 July (Rome)

FOR MORE INFORMATIONS AND CONTACTS
• DPU SummerLab 2012 Series
• DPU SummerLab website
• Anna Schulenburg:
anna.schulenburg.10@ucl.ac.uk