International exchange The workshop stems from the belief that the variety of cultural approaches and sharing of different views on the urban reality is an essential factor of enrichment of the educational path of architects and urban planners. Working in an international - multicultural group with people from ‘other’ cultures and with different background helps to deepen the analytical reading of the urban context and to overcome individual pre-concepts. Last but not least, this kind of international exchange strongly promotes cross-cultural and trans-cultural understanding of the otherness which emerges to valid mutual statements on city life and finally to better design. Complex and multidisciplinary urban issues The contemporary city is characterized by a cultural and morphological complexity, which includes a multiplicity of practices, lifestyles and forms of living and transforming the urban space that requires multifaceted, hybrid and multidisciplinary analytical methodologies. Therefore, the purpose of the international workshop lies in addressing these complex issues through the overlap of reading levels and interpretations of reality, towards a descriptive synthesis able to identify the diverse aspects of conflicts and to orient responsive and intervening projects.
Local/global interrelations It is considered extremely important to stimulate the ability to read the relationship between local reality and global phenomena. In this sense, the location of this workshop is of particular interest: the City of Belgrade, characterized by a past of early multiculturalism, a local identity addressed by its very nature - the fruitful encounter between East and West, the mix of cultures, languages, religions. In recent years this true federal capital, has seen violent upset of its system of local/global relationship and its role in the international context, challenged today by strong transformations and parallel strong spatial, economic and social imbalances. Representation/communication of urban landscape and project The workshop will start with the reading (knowledge), representation (description) and exposure (communication) of the characteristics of the identity of places, between transformations and persistence, aiming to identify and to highlight some spatial and social elements, latent but potentially reliable, on which to base a design response to the problems that plague the area. Instead of defining the precise circumstances of the project, students will be engaged in a creative description of the study area, which will inevitably contain diverse interpretation of the urban/human landscape characterized for each group. The quality of communication is the key for the nucleus of consistent and culturally sustainable design vision.
01 Intro | Topic and general approach |
comprehensive document for all possible social, morphological, functional, ecological, economical, etc. components characterizing the site. On the contrary, the ability of students to develop the maximum depth of vision will be much appreciated, even if they are starting from a very specific approach.