Workshop CITIES REVIS(IT)ED

The 'Cities Revis(it)ed' programme focuses on the understanding and management of urban development processes related to tourism, leisure activities and their effects to local uses of cities in a design oriented, but interdisciplinary way. The objective of the 3 year programme is to develop new methods of mapping, analysis and intervening into dense urban environments with touristic potentials. The two main focuses inside this topic are the following: gathering of new knowledge related to urban tourism with research by design methods, and the implementation of this knowledge into architectural study programmes usable at a European academic level.

'Cities Revis(it)ed' involves teachers/researchers and students from three European cities: Budapest, Barcelona and Milano. These cities will be analysed by mixed workshop groups, taking on the points of view of tourists and locals, searching for innovative design solutions to accommodate both groups inside the existing morphologies. The cities will be visited and re-visited by teachers and researchers to offer a revised development model for their touristic and leisure usages. The project look for analytical and design methods that can be implemented to different urban situations, used by architectural professionals and urban planners and taught to architectural students.

The second workshop will be hosted at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, UPC. Barcelona is an ideal city to start a programme on the architectural and land use problems of urban tourism. The workshop can compare urban situations where touristic uses generate conflicts for residents (Ciutat Vella, Old Town), where residential uses cause diminished experiences for tourists (“Tres Turons” Park), where new interventions and developments improved the use (Waterfront) and where the lack of intervention and development worsens touristic use (Glories Square).

-Understanding and management of urban development processes related to tourism, leisure activities and their effects to local uses of cities in a design oriented.

-Gathering of new knowledge related to urban tourism with research by design methods, and the implementation of this knowledge into architectural study programmes usable.

-Taking on the points of view of tourists and locals, searching for innovative design solutions to accommodate both groups inside the city.

-Looking for analytical and design methods that can be implemented to different urban situations.

These topics can be faced with new design strategies, and compared to the similarly interesting situations of Budapest, and Milano, in the previous and the following workshop respectively. The outcomes will be relevant for both the students and the researchers. Students participating in the programme, 12 each year from each institution, will acquire knowledge of a different urban culture and environment with fieldwork and team design tasks on urban spaces usage, tourism and public space design. The new experience in international, interdisciplinary work will enable a total of 108 architectural students to face their profession in a more comprehensive way. Teachers will gain new materials and methods for teaching subjects related to urban planning and design. Each year teachers/researchers from the three institutions will experiment new analytic tools for describing the touristic usage of cities, resulting in case studies relevant for the academic and international research communities. These case studies will be published in the web-site of the programme, but also submitted for scientific publication.