The College of Design is offering a 6-week Education Abroad program to Medellin, Colombia, May 18-June 29, 2020. Students interested in this experience should come to the planning meeting on Friday, Oct. 11.

This program explores the relationship between social, political, and environmental forces in architecture and urban design. Based in Medellin, Colombia, it draws from a living archive of influential projects that helped usher the rebirth of the city in what became known as social urbanism. Known as the “City of Eternal Spring,” Medellin has been recognized by the global design community with such accolades as the 2013 Veronica Rudge Green Prize in Urban Design from Harvard, the 2012 City of the Year from the Wall Street Journal and the Urban Land Institute, and the 2009 Curry Stone Design Prize, which recognizes outstanding achievements in socially minded design projects. Included in the itinerary are multiple excursions to sites in and around Medellin, as well as a week-long trip to Bogota.

There will be 2 courses offered during the 6-week program: a 6-credit design studio and a 3-credit elective, open to students from all design disciplines. The studio will explore the intersection of architecture and landscape in what Stan Allen has termed landform building. It will pursue this idea through the design of a library-park, a building typology developed in Medellin as part of its efforts to create social urbanism. The elective will examine the concept of sustainability from a critical perspective. Using local histories of political movements and economic incentives, combined with literature from development studies, environmentalism, geography, decolonial studies, and design, it will challenge prevailing notions of sustainability that privilege the accounting of materials and present alternatives that involve a more relational approach.

Where: Medellin, Colombia
Duration: 6 weeks
Credits: 10 credits
UK Education Abroad Application deadline: Spring 2020
UK Education Abroad Scholarship deadline: February 1, 2020

For more information, contact SOA Assistant Professor Brent Sturlaugson.