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Syllabus⇝

ReCITYing is an EU-funded project that seeks to leverage temporary reuse as a key strategy for urban and rural regeneration by creating a platform for knowledge exchange on how these practices can transform underutilized or neglected spaces into cultural hubs. By uniting young creatives, designers, policymakers, and social enterprises, ReCITYing aims to foster co-creation and participatory design processes, encouraging community engagement in transforming vacant spaces into artistic laboratories and cultural incubators.

This course, part of the ReCITYing project, explores the intersection of architecture, design, agronomy, and art to reimagine underused rural spaces through creative recycling and collaborative action. The focus will be on one of the four pilot cases of the project, the Parc Agrari del Baix Llobregat, an agricultural landscape near Barcelona.

In this context, the course seeks to address not only the physical underuse of the land but also the social underuse of the space. It will introduce students to the potential of agricultural processes to generate sustainable products made entirely from plants, by-products, and agricultural production waste. Students will explore how to create holistic processes that support a circular economy and reinforce the values of sustainability.

The course will consist of three main phases, each focusing on a different aspect of creative recycling, land art, and collaborative architectural design.

The first phase, taking place in October, will involve an immersive creative workshop where students will work together to explore how agricultural by-products, plants, and other materials from the Parc Agrari can be transformed into a sustainable product that leads to an artistic architectural installation.

In January, the second phase will see students refining the workshop outcomes, developing one proposal into a practical design that is both buildable and sustainable.

The final phase, occurring in May, will involve the students in the full-scale construction of the installation within the Parc Agrari.

See full course details here.