URBAN UTOPIA - Cities in the Making - CoCreating Cultural Spaces

Over the course of 11 days, the students will get the opportunity to explore how art, design, and participation can transform urban spaces. The classroom will be a part of Magdeburg itself – an area of history and defunct industry called the Science Port. The Blended Intensive Program URBAN UTOPIA consists of a virtual period (22nd of April, 3rd of June, 15th of July and 16th of September 2026) taking place online in Zoom and an in-presence period (9th to 19th of August 2026) taking place in Magdeburg, Germany. The in-presence period is divided into an academic seminar program in the morning and workshops in the afternoon. Each student gets to apply for one seminar of the academic program as well as one workshop. Depending on your choice, you will explore the topics, create an expertise, develop visions and test different versions of ideas or build models and prototypes in that field of interest throughout the whole Blended Intensive Program.

1.“More than Human” – Building an Outdoor Office

2.Human Rights and Social Inclusion Using Sports for All

3. Living Meeting Places

4. Saving and Distributing Water in TransPort

5. From Vision to Action

Designing an Outdoor Office, Creating a sport game on the base of inclusion and participation not competition, Saving rain water in the science port, Make an Inclusive Design concept, Understand and visualize a backcasting process.

Once in Magdeburg, URBAN UTOPIA will start on Sunday 9th of August with a special public cultural event as a low-threshold opportunity for Magdeburg´s residents and students to connect. One element of the opening event will be an interactive treasure hunt. Participants will be invited to explore the history of Magdeburg, to record their impressions and experiences and to take part in non-verbal interviews which will be integrated in the further work of URBAN UTOPIA.

From Monday 10th until Friday 14th of August, you will meet up in your seminars and workshops to work analytically in the morning and transform your knowledge and findings creatively in the afternoon.

On the weekend, we will visit an extraordinary exhibition in Berlin and pitch the outcomes of the seminars to one another.

In the following week, Monday 17th and Tuesday 18th of August will be filled up with activities of testing and finalizing ideas, building models or constructing prototypes. Also, the outcome of the workshops like an exhibition, theatre or other kinds of performances will be prepared for the final event on Wednesday, 19th of August. This event will be a Festival, where all results of URBAN UTOPIA will be shown in public at the Science Port. People of Magdeburg and politicians of the area will be invited to the Festival, which will give the opportunity to exchange impressions, learnings and ideas.

URBAN UTOPIA will start online with three Zoom Meetings. The Online Meetings will be spread over the months of April, June, July 2026 and will take about 3 hours. In these virtual seminars you will prepare for the in-presence period in Magdeburg in August 2026. During the Zoom meetings, you will get to know each other, build a foundation of knowledge in your chosen field and launch first ideas on how to get started thematically once in Magdeburg. The final Online Meeting in September will serve for the evaluation and the documentation of the summer school.

Motivation Letter