Designing Urban Inclusion : Metrolab Brussels MasterClass 1
This book presents the productions of the first international MasterClass hosted by Metrolab in January and February of 2017, on the topic of inclusion in urban spaces and urban projects. The event is the first stage of a larger project conducted at Metrolab and involving collective and collaborative research. We would like to begin with a word about this project that is dear to us.
This first MasterClass, which was part of the 2016-2017 working period on urban inclusion, explored the topic of urban hospitality as part of a methodology dedicated to transdisciplinary investigation; this methodology was mainly developed by our guest Master Tutor Miodrag Mitrašinović, associate professor of Urbanism and Architecture at the Parsons School of Design and author of Concurrent Urbanities: Designing Infrastructures of Inclusion (Routledge, 2015). Other mentors for the MasterClass included Maya Wiley (American civil rights activist and former advisor to New York City mayor Bill de Blasio) and the duo of architect Teddy Cruz and political scientist Fonna Forman (associate professor of Political Science and director of the UCSD Center on Global Justice).
Some thirty students from Master and PhD programmes, with diverse disciplinary and geographical backgrounds (Belgium, Italy, United Kingdom, USA, China, Brazil, etc.), actively and constructively participated in the MasterClass, demonstrating both international interest in Metrolab’s initiative and in Brussels’ potential as a city-region that arouses curiosity and creativity. This initial publication reports on the work, reflections, and results produced during the first MasterClass; as such, it provides an early illustration of the scientific and critical content developed through transdisciplinary research.
