Autumn Challenge Thematic Lecture: Resilient communities in the age of transitions
Description
Imagining, planning, designing cities - or parts of them - means designing collective futures. The seminar explores those significant questions that communities are facing in the contemporary transformations of their living environment. Whom are the futures designed for? How possible and imaginable futures, and related socio-cultural-economic-ecological conditions, affect contemporary design decisions? What is the temporal horizon of the design perspectives (Short? Medium? Long?). The contamination of disciplinary boundaries between landscape, architecture, urbanism, ecology, and futures studies (a recent branch of social sciences) has forced to expand and redefine the practice of designers and their field of operations. Following this, the seminar will focus on the expansion in approaches and definitions by associating the concept of future-proofing with the assessment of relevant megatrends; the megatrend assessment is considered the starting point to support the definition of future-proof policies or interventions.
We consider climate change as a key factor requiring the development of resilience in addition with other megatrends which might create synergies and reinforcing effects (both positive and negative), depending on the preparedness of social-economic systems and actors. The interaction among participants will consist of a facilitated discussion inspired to the MEGATRENDS IMPLICATIONS ASSESSMENT - A Workshop on Anticipatory Thinking and Foresight for Policy Makers (by the Joint Research Centre, JRC 2017), using the platform MURAL and an original template (created for the event).
Expectations
Students will be actively involved in interactive activities with the aim to achieve new knowledge of theories and practices on climate adaptation and urban resilience, as well as innovative tools for engaging communities. The seminar is specifically designed to address multiple disciplines and enrollment is encouraged for students from the fields of landscape architecture, architecture, urban planning and design, ecological design, as well students from environmental sciences, economics and social sciences interested in the long-term management and design of built environments or territories but it is also opened to other disciplines.
Activity Description
- Short and intensive lectures on design approaches and future studies methodologies.
- Applied exercise where participants work in groups on future-proofing for climate-resilient communities themes in order to test the proposed methodology.
- Collective restitution of the results in groups and to the larger audience.
TO PREPARE FOR THE LECTURE, make sure to get familiar with the following documents:
- Urban Tracks: Cities shaping collective futures? Download Urban Tracks: Cities shaping collective futures?
- Megatrends Implications assessment Download Megatrends Implications assessment
- Mapping Europe's environmental future: understanding the impacts of global megatrends at the national level Download Mapping Europe's environmental future: understanding the impacts of global megatrends at the national level