We invite you to submit your applications to participate in an interdisciplinary summer school"The Idea of the City: Reality Check" to take place during June 29 – July 11, 2016, in Slavutych.
Location: Slavutych, Ukraine
Dates: June 29 – July 11, 2016
Deadline for applications: May 10,2016
What can you learn in the city which is the last new city and the planned city of modern Ukraine? The summer school in Slavutych is an opportunity to analyze the process of making a city, starting with an idea, through discussions and solutions, planning, and construction and up to developing spaces and buildings, functioning of institutions and everyday life. Who are the actors and participants of the process of city creation? What is management and reforms in the planned city in the post-planning context? What are environmental challenges following the industrial disaster? How could citizens' prospects be included? How do you best study the process of identification with the place? What are experiences of a city and the stories of Slavutych citizens who used to be displaced persons?
The goal of an interdisciplinary summer school is to combine learning and research formats while using integrated approaches and methods of different disciplines in urban studies. The school curriculum will include social, humanitarian, environmental and economic prospects in planning and functioning of a modern city, also with the account for historical contexts. The example of Slavutych would allow analyzing implementation and practices of such urbanistic and social concepts as a planned city, a utopian city, a post-disaster city, eco-city, and mono-urbanicity for the prospects of different disciplines. The school aims to enhance knowledge in one of the suggested fields, introduce and establish cooperation with the related fields. Seminars, field studies, and methodological workshops would help to apply theoretical knowledge in practice and get the new impetus for professional enhancement.
Location: Slavutych – a town in Kyiv oblast, an enclave in Chernihiv region. It was built after the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster in 1986. Slavutych is the last planned city of the Soviet Union and the youngest city in present day Ukraine. Exclusive circumstances of its establishment shaped the ideas and the implementation process of the project for a new city. Teams of experts from the 8 republics of the USSR used to be engaged in planning and into development works. As a result, Slavutych architecture manifests criticism of modernist architecture which combines international architectural context with socialist approaches and Soviet principles of regional peculiarities. Slavutych is all about the last generation of Soviet architects searching for sustainable and citizen friendly architecture and a new home for the staff of Chernobyl NPP and the residents of the contaminated Pripyat.
Participation: The summer school invites Master students, post-graduates and independent researchers aged 18 to 30 dealing with anthropology, architecture, economics, engineering, geography, history, design planning, political science, sociology, and culture studies. We realize that all urban researchers have different experiences and their own prisms. That is why the interdisciplinary summer school would rely on achievements from different disciplines. We would also use a more general discourse in urban studies providing the environment for critical and meaningful favorable intellectual engagement.
School Structure: The interdisciplinary summer school plans to work in different research directions in three themes. They would jointly analyze and develop a shared vision of what present day Slavutych is, to which extent it corresponds to the architects’ ideas, and what the prospects of the city are for the future. The participants are going to be supervised by lecturers from different countries.
Theme 1: UrbanPractices, Memories, and Imaginations.
The focus of this research direction is on a person who keeps creating, recreating, experiencing, imagining and remembering Slavutych. We are interested to learn more about how citizens of the youngest Ukrainian city establish their link with the space: a building, a street, other cities and even countries; what their life routes are; and how they interact with the city. In this biography-oriented class we shall study human values, life experiences, everyday routes and images of places.
Theme 2: Urban Space and Environment.
Slavutych offers exclusive opportunities for research combining sciences and arts with architecture and city planning. Within this theme, we shall analyze urban space and the structure of functioning of urban ecosystems such as city forests, parks, landscape, biodiversity, water resources, and climate. It would allow studying the interaction between architecture environment and infrastructure with the ecosystem of the city. The aspect is crucial for a city satellite to the nuclear power plant.
Theme 3: City Funds and Management.
Local self-government bodies adopt a city budget every year. What would the figures imply, though, for local citizens who use the city every day, for entrepreneurs who consider sustainable options for their development, for officials of local self-government bodies who adopt managerial decisions on city operations? Do the figures matter to them? Understanding city funding and budgeting procedures creates a precondition to implement any ideas. Within this study theme, students could analyze in detail the system of managing the city.
Terms of Participation
Participation in the interdisciplinary summer school is free of charge. The participants will be provided with accommodation and catering. The school organizers also cover travel costs up to UAH 700.
Working languages – Ukrainian, Russian, and English. Lectures will be mostly held in English that is participants are requested to be fluent in English to the extent to be able to freely read academic papers and understand the lectures.
Application
If you are interested in participating in the interdisciplinary summer school, please complete and return the application found through the link by May 10, 2016. The form may be filled out in English, Ukrainian, Russian or Belarusian.
SelectionProcess
All candidates will be notified of the selection results by emails before May 31, 2016. If you are selected, please, confirm within three days. If a candidate is not able to confirm the participation the placement will be granted to the next person on the waiting list. Upon confirmation, you will be sent all relevant details on transfer, catering, and accommodation.
For questions feel free to contact the school coordinator Yevheniya Hubkina by emaili.gubkina@lvivcenter.org or by tel. +38 050 3012876
Organizers
Heinrich Boll Foundation's Office in Ukraine, Center for Urban History and the NGO Urban Forms Center.
The summer school is part of research activities of the Center for Urban History "Planned Urbanicity in Socialism and Beyond: Ideas, Experiences, Opinions".
This opportunity has expired. It was originally published here:
http://www.lvivcenter.org/en/summerschools/21-9slavutych/