UPCOMING COURSES

The Independent School for the City is a school in, of, and for the city. It builds on the conviction that strategies for the city - architectural and economic, spatial and social - should be based on real, first hand, empirical research. The Independent School for the City offers a variety of post-graduate educational programmes ranging from shorter one-day workshops and masterclasses, one or two-week studio's to an intensive 3 month programme on contemporary Urbanism. Below we'll give you and overview of our upcoming activities.

1, 2 & 9 November 2024 - Craftivism

Concrete workshop with Studio Ossidiana

A hands on workshop on the expressive potential of concrete, involving formwork, pouring and polishing, creating a Petrified Tapestry of concrete tiles with different pigments, stones, sand and cement, taking place on 1, 2 & 9 November 2024.

Studio Ossidiana is an award-winning practice working at the crossroads of architecture, design, and landscape, led by Giovanni Bellotti and Alessandra Covini. Balancing research and fabrication, the practice explores innovative approaches through buildings, materials, objects, and installations. More info soon.

A seminar about the rebuilding of destroyed cities. Friday 15, 22 & 29 November 2024

Fables of the Reconstruction

The Independent School for the City is organising another edition of the Fables of the Reconstruction seminar in November 2024. Building on the insights from last year, we will this time focus on the mechanisms behind the reconstruction of cities, contrasting the involvement of global conglomerates and multinationals - often characterised by generic concepts - with the need for locally rooted solutions. Through lectures and conversations the seminar will provoke an exchange of ideas across borders. Rotterdam will be the fitting background against which this seminar will play out.

A one-week studio exploring strategies for radical greening our cities by creating a micro forrest, with Peter Veenstra of LOLA Landscape Architects. Spring 2025

Into the Woods

Planting trees has become a popular project for local and national governments all around the world to combat climate change and to increase biodiversity. This simple objective contributed to expanding, regenerating and rewilding large natural areas, and creating diverse and healthy carbon-storing ecosystems. At the same time, there are also many reasons to radically green our urban areas: trees capture CO2 and clean the air, they cool down our cities, they can help regulate ecosystems, they improve our health and give people a sense of well-being. In this workshop we will follow an ecological and hands-on approach and used the natural reproductivity of nature by harvesting and replanting seedlings. We will create our own micro forest, taking a layered approach starting from the soil up to the top of the trees, while specifically looking at the biodiverse value of what we are planting and what a new forest needs to survive. More info soon