Transformations I is a mandatory urban theory module within the urban design graduate programme. In the winter term the course is split into a lecture and a reading seminar.
Based mainly on the academic disciplines of critical urban geography, planning theory, and urban sociology, the module has three key aims. First, it gives students from different undergraduate studies a collective background to navigate the interdisciplinary academic field of urban studies. The lecture in the winter term focuses on conveying the importance of – interlinked – historical and theoretical thinking, while at the same time giving a broad overview of relevant schools of thought regarding the central characteristics defining the urban. The close reading and collective discussion of key texts in the seminar allows students to bring their specific understandings of urban theories and concepts to class and thus puts their preconceptions on the table. The reading lists represent the impossibility of teaching relevant classics and not excluding underrepresented knowledges in the academic canon.

The second aim of the module is to supports students in developing their academic reading and writing skills. This refers not only to reading and analysing academic texts.
The third aim of the module is rather an aspiration: to make theoretical thinking part of the toolbox for students of urban design beyond the theory class. It is set out to collectively recognise that urban transformations are always led by assumptions around what ‘the good city’ is.