Global Impact: Cities in Transition course review

Final review of the Cities in Transition studio course presenting solutions for more sustainable urban development for the City of Tagbilaran in the Philippines.

Since 2015 Aalto University, Nagoya Institute of Technology from Japan and Bohol Island State University from the Philippines have collaborated on the Cities in Transition field trip focusing on Bohol Island and Tagbilaran City in the Philippines. Data collection and analysis were conducted during an intense two week field trip hosted by Bohol Island State University in January, after which students continued their design work back in Finland until May. During the field trip students also conducted small interventions in five locations in the city to highlight possibilities for a more sustainable city development.

Cities in Transition -course is a master’s degree level advanced studio course in the Aalto University, department of Architecture for students of architecture, landscape architecture and design. It focuses on the reality of planning, architecture and product design outside Europe, with cultural understanding as the point of departure. The course highlights the environmental, social and economic aspects of sustainable development, using participatory and multidisciplinary approaches to problem solving. The course, which has run under different names since 1993, aims to teach students about the environmental, economic, cultural and social impacts of development, architecture and urban planning. Collaborating with universities, NGOs and municipal and national authorities helps students to gain a broader understanding of the local context, but also aims at long term capacity building in the  host country. Each year the course takes on real life cases in a city in the developing world. In previous years the field trip, which forms an essential part of the course, has taken students to Senegal, Benin, Cambodia and Tanzania.

Cities in Transition 2016 E-Book is found at: urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-60-7026-1 

Link to a video KaliPLAY – intervention done during the field trip in January 2017 in the Philippines: youtu.be/N-82nyeF8Ho 

See pictures from the trip with the #CitTagLab www.instagram.com/explore/tags/cittaglab/ 

Cities in Transition is part of Aalto’s World in Transition -network: witlab.fi/ 

This event is in English.

#CitTagLab

Visit the event website