International Workshops: Scenarioscoping
Component code / course code:
Semester: winter / summer
ECTS credits: 5
Lecture hours per week (SWS): 4
Lecturer: Abigail Ransmeier / Heinrich Lipp
Course language: English
Prerequisite: 2nd year students
Objectives (Learning Outcome): The architecture department offers workshops on different topics addressing the current development and challenges of city planning. The workshop attempts to learn the strategies discussed in practical application and to reflect on them critically.
Lecture topics (content): In this workshop students are invited to think long term and big picture and to contemplate a vital question: faced with uncertainty, what future do we want? To tackle this query, students will investigate the field of “futures.” Class exercises with employ scenario planning tools and “design fiction” to frame productive conversations about what might come next. What drives our societies? If certain political or economic megatrends play out, what futures might unfold? To borrow from thinker Stewart Brand, what strategies might we employ today, to ensure that our communities are “scenario-buffered” and prepared to adapt in resource efficient, sustainable ways.
The workshop will foreground visual thinking and storytelling. Students will work in teams to analyze and reimagine an existing building complex in Boston, using it as a case study and as a springboard for broader conversations. By the end of the semester, each team will curate and present a manuscript describing a future society documented through narratives, diagrams, drawings and models.
Teaching format (e.g. online/in person lecture/Seminar/Lab etc.): Workshop on campus and online meetings
Examination: Student research project
