In October 2014, NCKU hold the iCities “Workshop on Workshop” – a special event devoted to the discussions of “workshops” “Workshop as we know is an educational activity with emerging significance in planning and design education. In the dictionary, workshop is defined as “a meeting at which a group of people engaging in intensive discussion and activity on a particular subject or project.” It is an unique pedagogy with the focus on theme, group discussions and intensity. As the world becomes a global village, workshops are important testing grounds for planning/design professionals and students to apply their skills and generate new ideas that are culturally sensitive and locally specific” (Source: iCities organisation http://www.up.ncku.edu.tw/2014icities)
During the past 5 years, NCKU has held or participated a total of 12 workshops in 8 different cities around the world, including, Bristol (UK), Seattle (USA), Delft (the Netherlands), Chengdu (China), Seoul (Korea) , Korat (Thailand), Taipei and Tainan (Taiwan). They involved a total of 72 instructors, 18 teaching assistances, and over 400 students from 20 universities around the world dealing with a variety of topic from small scale projects, such as cycling promotion, housing, to large scale developments, such as agricultural enterprise zone, water management. These past workshops denote the scale and diversity of workshop, yet its importance has often been underplayed as an extra-curriculum and informal educational activity.
TU Delft was represented by Roberto Rocco (Chair of Spatial Planning and Strategy) and by Martina Gentili (POLIS Urbanism Student Association). Martina Gentili is an undergraduate student and of the leaders of the URBANISM WEEK, student led event held at the Department of Urbanism, consisting of a full week of workshops, lectures, discussion and other activities. A complete overview of the Urbanism Week can be seen HERE. Martina spoke of the challenges and accomplishments of the Urbanism week, with special focus on the theoretical framework related to the importance of trans-scalar analysis in Urbanism.
Roberto Rocco presented the learning objectives and teaching methods used at the Summer School Planning and Design with Water: Learning from Dutch Cities and Regions, held at TU Delft in July 2014, with students from NCKU and the South China University of Technology. The main objective of the Summer School was to introduce students to issues of sustainable regional planning and design with water, with illustrations from the Dutch experience. A complete overview of the Summer School can be seen HERE.
A presentation on the Summer School can be viewed below:
