Independent School for the City

The Independent School for the City is a playground for all urban thinkers, do-ers and designers – based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. It brings together critical and experimental ideas in the field of urban research, design, strategy and activism. Through a range of diverse activities, urban professionals can discuss and develop ideas to tackle the challenges facing the modern city. 

The School is an initiative of Crimson Historians and Urbanists and ZUS and is rooted in their practices of combining a critical and activist approach to the city with affecting real change through architectural and planning projects. It is founded on a strong belief in an incremental instead of a tabula rasa approach to city planning which blurs the lines between critique and practice on the one hand, and research and policy on the other.