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The Schengen Summer School of Luxemburg University, scheduled for September 1-10, 2016, will look into the issue of the impact that the various forms of migration might have on urban planning and architecture and how architects and city planners can get involved in approaches to integrate migrants and refugees.Whether it is the nomadic tribes of the stone age, the traveling nations of the middle ages, the rural population of the 19th century or the current wave of refugees that is fleeing war or environmental catastrophes - mankind has, throughout history, always been on the move, either to find a better life or even more importantly to secure survival. Migration is not just as old as human life itself, it is far older than architecture and its inherent goal of settling down people. Doug Sanders, in his book Arrival City, proposes to understand migration as one of the great opportunities of our time while also pointing out that integration of the newly arrived will require great dedication and on-going activities.Schengen is the name of the small town where the agreement on the borderless Europe was signed - a historic achievement of the European Union that is increasingly challenged. Luxembourg as the host of the summer school is itself an "Arrival Country", where more than half of the population has a migration background. The Schengen Summer School will be split into two phases: a first, analytical phase, where experts from the various disciplines (architecture, urbanism, geography, ethnology, anthropology, sociology, history, political science...) will review and discuss migration processes in the global, European and regional context. A second phase will see the development of various architectural and urban planning approaches to the issue of migration, less as a supposed solution but more to show possible fields of activity. Migration impacts many aspects of our subject: the question of how we live together, whether we jointly design and use public spaces and spaces to work or how a joint identity can be forged. The Schengen Summer School is targeted both at current students and graduates in the subjects of Architecture and Urban Planning, but also interested students with background in geography or social sciences. |
