» International Summer Programme in Architecture丨 Cities in Asia (9 credits)

The International Summer Programme in Architecture: Cities in Asia (Studio Shanghai-Tokyo) is a three-week credit-bearing course organised by the HKU Department of Architecture. Founded in 2010, it is an annual design and research studio that travels to multiple cities in Asia. Taught by a diverse group of faculty members from HKU and speakers from internationally renowned universities and independent research groups, the course offers participants an unrivaled learning experience within Asia’s most dynamic contexts.

This year, the programme will travel to the cities of Shanghai and Tokyo. In particular, students would study the effects of industry, manufacturing and other forms of production, and their adjacency to requisite urban functions such as housing and commerce. These forms of production have new appearances as late-industrial or post-industrial forms, because of their strategic importance and complex organisation within the highly urbanised contexts. Positioning the learning process on the multiple fronts of society, industry, culture and the city, this course will take advantage of connections to universities, governmental agencies, think-tanks, NGOs and independent research groups. Saskia Sassen notes that it is precisely because cities are no longer within the routine limits of national politics, they naturally become the new frontiers of innovation and action. It is important for students to grapple with such incredible potential within Asia.

Through this course, students will focus on different urban environments and building typologies, especially in the way they resist and subvert, or become mutated or subsumed by the highly transformative urban conditions today. The studio and seminar assignments would be based on the examination and re-invention of a number of these building types, seeking out strategies of cooperation, exploitation, adaptation, and even conflict. Students will have the benefit of visiting unique areas of the city under-going massive change, exploring and discussing broad-ranging issues through historical and theoretical concepts in identity, post-colonialism, nationalism and globalisation. Learning activities include lectures, seminars, studio crits, field work, visits to experimental practices and sites, and forums for active discussions.

Click here to visit the HKU Summer Institute page for the Cities in Asia Programme.

Our course poster can be downloaded here.