dpu Barcelona SummerLab: Conflicting Diversities

Limited places remain for the sixth year of the Development Planning Unit's summerLab series - a unique platform for one-week design workshops in contested spaces, with sessions geared toward professionals and students with an interest in studying the built environment and its contested narratives of transformation.

Organised in collaboration with Master of International Cooperation Sustainable Emergency Architecture (School of Architecture, UIC, Barcelona) and Zaida Muxi Martinez (Director of Urbanism, Housing and Public Space, Municipality of Santa Coloma de Gramenet), the Barcelona workshop interrogates the accelerating influx of immigrants that has been shaping contemporary cities in the last decade. The creation of urban strategies for inter-cultural co-existence is imperative. The municipality of Santa Coloma de Gramenet, in the periphery of Barcelona Metropolitan Area, has recently experienced the convergence of newcomers from Latin America, China and the Maghreb region.

In this context, the DPU summerLab will explore the spatial implications of the co-existence of diverse cultures in the everyday life of the study area. Such complex reality strengthens the need to acknowledge and assess the intricate relationships between the diverse existing cultures and their use and perception of spaces of civic content. The week-long engagement of international participants with local residents and public authorities will delve into the potentials for intercultural exchanges in the hyper-diverse neighbourhood of Fondo.

Further links:

• Apply for the Barcelona summerLab