Independent School for the City

The Independent School for the City is a brand new one-year international education program for post-graduate students in the field of design, planning, sociology, history etc. It has its epicenter in the heart of Rotterdam, in the development area Central District. The school is rooted in the practice of Crimson Architectural Historians and ZUS (Zones Urbaines Sensibles) of combining a critical, activist approach to the city with effecting real change through architectural and planning projects. Blurring the line between critique and practice, research and policy and a strong belief in an incremental instead of a tabula rasa approach to city planning. The full curriculum of the Independent School for the City will start in September 2019. It builds on the belief that strategies for the city - architectural and economic, spatial and social - should be based on real, first hand, empirical research into the city. Research that can be expressed in stories: sad and happy stories that r...