CITY & COGNITION

       AFFORDANCE, ENACTION & AWARENESS

 

COLOMBETTI — EXETER          

HÖLSCHER — ETHZ           

LÉVY — EPFL  

PORTUGALI — TEL AVIV      

TVERSKY — COLUMBIA

 

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Innovative research and concepts from cognitive approaches are not only challenging the way we should tackle the relation among humans and with the built environment, but are also providing points of connection for a better integration of all the diverse relevant disciplines. Many questions apply: how do we imagine and conceive space?, how do we find our way and navigate the built environment and the landscape?, how do we engage with the pressures of life in cities?, what can we say about the spatial and social aspects of a territory from observing behaviours, attitudes or emotions at the individual level? Or, even, how do we plan and design a building or a city?

Participants will profit from lectures and research workshops with highly renowned researchers. Barbara Tversky is a leading authority in the areas of visual-spatial reasoning and collaborative cognition. Juval Portugali integrates complexity and self-organization theories, environmental-spatial cognition, urban dynamics and planning in modern and ancient periods. Giovanna Colombetti is a philosopher of cognitive science. In her work she draws on philosophy, as well as theoretical and experimental work in psychology and neuroscience. Jacques Lévy is a geographer and an urbanist. His major concerns are social theory of space, urbanity, globalization, cartography, and the epistemology of social sciences. Mathis Stock’s research focuses on the notions of dwelling and spatial mobility in contemporary societies. He is especially interested in the spatial practices. Christoph Hölscher conducts research on spatial navigation in complex environments, providing insights into cognitive processes of design thinking and creativity.

Participants in the summer school do hands-on work in interactive workshops, profit from personalized and direct contact with world-renown scholars and researchers, develop teamwork transversal skills and improve their writing of interdisciplinary research projects.

Learning outcomes

The summer school addresses specific competences through a tight integration between the learning outcomes, the format and the output. The learning outcomes for each block are:

 
Medium-level cognitive outcomes:  
  • Identify  new research opportunities in the application of cognitive sciences to the study of urban areas according to multiple criteria (technological, economic, organizational, environmental). 
  • Describe different approaches and conceptual frames relating cognition to the study of the city. 
  • Design appropriate research methods for applying cognitive sciences to the study of urban areas
 
High-level cognitive outcomes: 
  • Define a comprehensive research statement strategy applicable to interdisciplinary research. 
  • Evaluate the expected performance of different research theses, drawing on their relation to empirical data and theory.
  • Optimize a research design based on issues from mapping and diagramming techniques. 
 
Transversal skills:
  • Co-ordinate interdisciplinary work to develop, agree and deliver upon a research plan. 
  • Draft a conceptual scientific research statement. 
  • Communicate the main aims, methods, expected outcomes and relevance of a interdisciplinary research project.