Work­shop announce­ments come in packs. Here is the third one, which I’d like to rec­om­mend espe­cially. The INTI sup­ported mas­ter­class com­pares highly reg­u­lated plan­ning strate­gies in the show­case new­town of the Nether­lands, Almere, with the self-​organised strate­gies employed in Gulensu, a clan­des­tine city exten­sion of Istanbul.

Plan­ning is a messy, time and energy-​consuming busi­ness of trial, error and fail­ure. Suc­cess is not a cer­tainty and even when the result is suc­cess­ful, it is often a sur­prise, not what was actu­ally being sought. Jane Jacobs

THE RESPON­SIVE CITY: ISTAN­BUL - RANDSTAD

Why?
The Respon­sive City: Istanbul-​Randstad* focuses on new approaches to the 21st city. The­o­ries of com­plex­ity and their appli­ca­tion onto the field of urban design and archi­tec­ture form its core. Here, the city is seen as a dynamic open system, con­stantly influ­enced by inter­act­ing bottom up and top down play­ers.
Who?
The Respon­sive City is an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary course offered as an once-​only-​elective for 16 par­tic­i­pants with diverse back­grounds such as human geog­ra­phy, plan­ning, soci­ol­ogy, archi­tec­ture and urban design.
How?
The course requires a hands-​on approach with two intense on-​site mas­ter­classes in Istan­bul and Almere. Agent-​based map­ping and respon­sive design game are main tools of the course. Knowledge/interest in GIS map­ping, infor­mal city, Istan­bul and/or Almere is highly appreciated.

The Dead­line for Appli­ca­tion is 5th of Sep­tem­ber 2008, Dates are 29 Sep­tem­ber - 3 Octo­ber 2008 in Almere; 27 - 31 Octo­ber 2008 in Istan­bul. The Mas­ter­classes are run by Prof. Arnold Rein­dorp, Prof. Juval Por­tu­gali & ir. Ekim Tan.

More at INTI, and soon at there​spon​sivecity.org.