Who owns the city? Who has a right to access it? How do we define spaces of overlap and contestation? What forces control the shifting landscape of the city? Why do some spaces become symbolic? Are there spaces which should be defended – for culture, or history, or diversity? How can design, planning and policy act effectively in the changing urban context?

The 2016 ‘City Life’ urban summer school, hosted jointly by University College Dublin (UCD) and the National College of Art and Design (NCAD), will address these core questions. After a thoroughly successful pilot programme in 2015, UCD and NCAD are delighted to be hosting an expanded and updated summer school in 2016. Amidst the growing awareness of Dublin’s development as an urban space, there is still much to be learnt about the forces governing the city and its changing landscape. Using multiple disciplinary perspectives, participants will be challenged to create new narratives for Dublin which address and give voice and image to the hidden parts of the city.

Below is a list of the indicative tracks running, subject to uptake, as part of the 2016 summer school. Further details about each track can be found on the core “Programme Tracks” page of www.ncad-ucd.ie/summer-school/:

ARCHITECTURE – Designing urban interventions guided by faculty from UCD Architecture, key figures in architectural practice and high-profile researchers.

CULTURE, MEMORY AND THE CITY – Investigating the relationship between memory and the city, through psychogeographic and critical writing practices.

INTERACTION DESIGN – A project-focused track to design, prototype and evaluate the interaction of the human and the digital in a real-world setting, while acquiring skills in physical computing.

SPATIAL ARTS AND VISUALISATION – (In collaboration with IADT) Pursuing temporal, spatial and critical visualization and representation of ‘Unseen Dublin’ through project-based work with expert support.

URBAN HISTORY AND MATERIAL CULTURE – Utilising design analysis, architectural history and material culture methods to explore the development, planning, architecture and everyday experience of Dublin.

The summer school will run for three weeks from July 11th – 29th, 2016.

Further details on registration, fees and accommodation, can be found on theUCD+NCAD Architecture Art Design Summer School leaflet.