CityLab 2018-2019 and 2019-2020

Thanks for visiting. We were unable to run CityLab last year. We’re still not running CityLab this academic year either. Sorry. There is so much happening in Aberdeen now too.

Due to staffing issues we’re not able to contribute to the programme this year. Given the interest in the course, we’ll bring it back as soon as we can. Both universities like the course, as do the students, and we like running it, so it’ll be back.

Do feel free to get in touch with us if there’s something you want to know, or if you’d like to run something like this in your city. We’d love to be able to help.

Cohort 5 Collaboration with Aberdeen Inspired

This term we’re working with Aberdeen Inspired to explore four challenges around the city centre and how we might make the city a better place. These are:

• Smart, deliverable solutions to fill our empty spaces – this is one of the biggest issues in the city centre, not just the upper floor empty/abandoned spaces, but also vacant ground floor units.
• Innovative strategy/proposal/solution to support the most vulnerable city centre users (focus on the night time, but not necessarily exclusively) – street begging, homeless people, inebriated revellers.
• What’s the next big thing for Aberdeen City Centre – events/festival legacy, better animation, vibrancy or regeneration.
• Delivering better public realm for all users.

The students started off with a good discussion of the ones that interested them, and proceeded to identify many opportunities for potential work in these areas. It’ll be interesting to see how they develop oner the coming six weeks.

 

Cohort 5 starts at new location

This term we’re using the ‘Drawing Room’ at Fifth Ring in Aberdeen as our ‘classroom’. This is a good change from the interesting, but not quite right space we had last term at Six Degrees North. At Fifth Ring we have a large blackboard, windows and the backs of storage units to use for post it notes and whatever. This is much more ‘designerly’.

We are also collaborating on the student challenges with Aberdeen Inspired, who’ve helped some teams in the past with information for the students. This time they will help set the challenges, and then guide the students with information. This will be interesting.