Programme 2023

The Independent School for the City is excited to announce its new programme for 2023!

We are starting our education programme on February 24 with Living on the Southside, a course in which participants will develop an alternative vision for the recently cancelled Feyenoord City development in Rotterdam based on the concept of Superdiversity. In April we offer The +2.5° City: Life in an Extreme Climate, an education studio exploring the impact of a 2.5 degree temperature rise on life in the city and how to plan for the daily effects of climate change. In May we will have the speculative crafts studio with Sam Jacob Crude Hints, in which we explore which artefacts will define the current era hundreds of years from now. And just before the summer, we will start another edition of our popular Film & Architecture Studio organised in collaboration with the Architecture Film Festival Rotterdam, on storytelling and film as a research tool to explore our build environment. We will welcome you back in October and November with a seminar series about rebuilding destroyed cities, the Fables of the Reconstruction, and the Research by Design studio with Team Thursday. Last but not least, we will wrap up the year with a crafts workshop on Urban Wool in Times of Energy Crisis with artist Beatrice Waanders. Next to our educational programme, we continue with our series of public events. Every last Friday of the month, we welcome you with a new speaker for our School’s Out! lecture series. Finally, for our Back to School programme, we invited Rick ten Doeschate from Civic Architects—in April—and Arna Mačkić from Studio LA—in October—to curate a three-evening lecture series around one topic or question that is on their mind at that moment, with a unique array of guest lecturers. So, check out our programme and sign up!  

About the Independent School for the City
The Independent School for the City is a playground for all kinds of urban thinkers, doers and designers, for those who have just graduated and those who already have years of experience. It is a place to learn, to reflect, to make, to be inspired. It’s a place to sharpen your position towards pressing urban issues, such as climate change, social inequality, biodiversity loss, migration, and the affordability of housing. The Independent School for the City believes that in order to face these questions, we need critical urban professionals who can work in an interdisciplinary context and who constantly push the boundaries of their profession. We need citizens that embrace the complexity and contradictions of the modern city, who keep an open-minded and curious attitude, and who are not afraid to take a stand. Through lectures, workshops, and education studios, and by using its hometown Rotterdam as a laboratory, the School aims to be a place for life-long learning. We offer a professional environment to historians, architects, sociologist, artists, and other urban professionals, to expand their skills in doing research, to tell stories and to develop strategies for the city.

Superdiversity—Living on the Southside: February 24–March 4
School’s Out! #31 with Lisa Doeland: February 24, 6–10pm
School’s Out! #32 with Todd Reisz: March 31, 6–10pm
Back to School with Rick ten Doeschate #1: April 4, 7–9pm
The +2,5° City—Life in an Extreme Climate: April 14–22
Back to School with Rick ten Doeschate #2: April 25, 7–9pm
School’s Out! #33 with Maria Roszkowska: April 28, 6–10pm
Back to School with Rick ten Doeschate #3: May 16, 7–9pm
Crude Hints with Sam Jacob: May 18–20
Film & Architecture Studio 2023 with Architecture Film Festival Rotterdam: June 2–10
School Party: June 23
School’s Out! #35 with Betsy Greer: September 29, 6–10pm
Back to School with Arna Mačkić #1: October 10, 7–9pm
Fables of the Reconstruction: October 13–November 9
School’s Out! #36 with Djamel Klouche: October 27, 6–10pm
Back to School with Arna Mačkić #2: October 31, 7–9pm
Research by Design Studio with Team Thursday: November 3–4
Back to School with Arna Mačkić #3: November 21, 7–9pm
School’s Out! #37 with Eva Pfannes: November 24, 6–10pm
Urban Wool in Times of Energy Crisis with Beatrice Waanders : December 15, dates to be confirmed