The challenge of inclusion of displaced persons in European cities touches several domains, not least education and training. In several cases third-country nationals, asylum seekers and refugees have difficulties in knowledge recognition and have to divide their energies across several “integration domains”. More generally, European cities today are struggling to produce inclusive urban spaces that can support inhabitation by the largest possible range of social groups. In this context, planning cities and designing urban spaces and services in an inclusive and appropriate way is a key issue. The “DESINC LIVE - Designing and Learning in the Context of Migration” project acknowledges the significant role that novel forms of teaching and learning can play in the context of producing inclusive urban spaces. Its proponents are a strategic partnership composed of four Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and three Civil Society Organisations (CSOs): the Politecnico di Milano as leading partner (IT), the UdK Berlin (DE), the KU Leuven (BG), the University of Sheffield (UK), as well as Refugees Welcome Italia (IT), Refugee Academy (DE) and Architecture Sans Frontieres – UK (UK). Four Italian and German CSOs are also engaged as associated partners. The main objectives of the project are: (1) To design, test and formalise an innovative educational offer primarily targeted at students in the fields of architecture, urban design and urban planning, as well as other learners interested in these issues. The educational offer is meant to promote renewed perspectives on city-making by encouraging social awareness, responsibility and criticality into the mainstream teaching of such subjects. (2) To promote the participation of displaced persons and CSOs involved in supporting their inclusion process in the formulation of new pedagogies. Civic partners will allow for incorporating grounded narratives about the social production of urban space, and will enhance their capacity to envision longer-term scenarios for urban transformation, beyond their most immediate needs. (3) To enable a further skills development of HE teachers and trainers themselves, so to help this process and allow a renewal in representation, tools and methods, important for tackling complex societal changes in the urban context, as well as for reinforcing the capacity to contribute to transdisciplinary thinking in this field. These objectives will be addressed transversally and transnationally, by promoting context-specific, action-oriented approaches within an international action framework. The possibilities offered by digital learning tools will provide further opportunity to promote transnationality, knowledge sharing and the development of new competences. HEI and non-HEI partners will cooperate and exchange expertise and experiences in order to design, test and manage the educational offer in a joint form. For this reason, they will all contribute in the development of the project tasks and activities, in order to produce three Intellectual Outputs: - IO1 corresponds to the design process leading to an educational offer proposal, through the refinement of teaching methods and a better understanding of learning needs of non-HEIs, as well as contextual specificities in Italy and Germany. The process will include two thematically oriented short-term joint staff events in Milan and Berlin, with responsibilities divided across partners. - IO2 concentrates on testing and monitoring the joint educational offer. The experimentation will occur in the framework of a blended mobility of students and trainees – more precisely a pilot group of 18 students and VET learners – including two workshops in Milan and Berlin and the implementation of learning approaches focused on real context experience and action. The activities will be held jointly by HE and non-HE educators, trainees and local associated partners, and will lead to the setup of an online Digital Learning & Teaching Toolbox as integral part of the offer. - IO3 is meant to ensure recognition and replicability of the joint educational offer and the learners’ acquired competences, after an in-depth evaluation process. Effective quality assurance will be based on learning outcomes related to European qualification frameworks, such as the release of a Diploma Supplement scheme. Four international multiplier events will promote the dissemination of results and allow multi-source feedback on the toolbox, which will support spreading open education practices even more widely. An open accessibility of project results will be ensured even after the end of the project, in order to maximise its impact on the longer term, in the sense of fostering novel education practices that raise the awareness of both civil society and HEI actors in regards to the challenges of inclusion and possible practices in the fields of architecture, urban design and urban planning.
The joint international network of Desinc Live intended to achieve three main objectives: (1) To design, test, and formalize an innovative educational offer primarily targeted at students in architecture, urban design, urban planning, and other learners interested in these issues. The educational offer was meant to promote renewed perspectives on city-making by encouraging social awareness, responsibility, and criticality into the mainstream teaching of such subjects. (2) To promote the participation of displaced persons and CSOs involved in supporting their inclusion process in the formulation of new pedagogies. Civic partners were asked to incorporate grounded narratives about the social production of urban space and enhance their capacity to envision longer-term scenarios for urban transformation beyond their most immediate needs. (3) To enable further skills development of HE teachers and trainers. This way, the international network sought to allow a renewal in representation, tools, and methods necessary for tackling complex societal changes in the urban context and reinforcing the capacity to contribute to transdisciplinary thinking in this field.
The International network behind the “DESINC LIVE - Designing and Learning in the Context of Migration” project decided to embark on it because it remarked a problem with how architecture and urban planning are taught nowadays. Generally, courses do not include the voice of displaced people and do not make room for thinking about more inclusive cities. Indeed, the challenge of including displaced persons in European cities touches several domains, not least education, and training. In several cases, third-country nationals, asylum seekers, and refugees have difficulty recognizing knowledge and have to divide their energies across several “integration domains”. More generally, European cities today struggle to produce inclusive urban spaces that can support inhabitation by the most extensive range of social groups. In this context, planning cities and designing urban spaces and services inclusively and appropriately is a crucial issue. The “DESINC LIVE” project acknowledges the significant role that novel forms of teaching and learning can play in producing inclusive urban spaces. It intended to experiment with a course capable of filling in the gaps in the contemporary educational offering.