About (EN)

In the meantime while you are sketching, you will develop your ideas and you have the time to rethink and varay your focus.

Read German Version here ….

This site is a project site of the module Visualisation of the Bachelor Degree Multimedia Production (MMP) at the University of Applied Sciences of the Grisons and the Berner Fachhochschule, Switzerland. Since the second year, it is now a joint project with Rotterdam University. And since 2019 we are partner in the Erasmusplus founded project called impetus.

It summarises contributions of students in the form of sketches and photos or movies as results from lectures and exercises that are developed during the sketchcity study weeks on the subject of Urbanity, Sustainability&Resilience and Smart City.

In the first turn, the students sketch the city with the technique Sketch & Draw in the manner of Urban Sketching. Based on a research on defined subjects and locations, students initialize their own ideas and do their ideasketches for the innovative design of the Smart Future and Liveable City. Using design thinking they develop with rapid ideasketches their research, innovations and iterations for creative solutions.

Why Urban Sketching?

The thesis is that residents of a city like to get involved in urban planning, if they are allowed to influence and if access to information and data is granted. If they can participate in urban planning, people create livable and resilient cities, because the planning and implementation will be discussed with all stakeholders. Every citizen is interested in the reliance of his city and for his life.

The Urban Sketchers often works with what is in front of them, they depict the world as it is and sketch street scenes the way they find them. We try to go one step further and outline what we would like or want in future. We ask: How could it be done in another way? What has to be done that the city and urban spaces will be more livable again? And what are the challenges of resilience?

Urban Sketchers outline their subjective views of the city.

The trend of Urban Sketching may be categorised as a counter-movement of the “click and post” of the smartphone era. The aim is to face the truth and the urban environment and have an opinion about how to build it better for humans, not for cars. The individual perception plays an important role. The sketch serves as an instrument of observation and reflection. Deciding drawing there brings enough time for reflection. Time plays a central role. Sketching means working with the creative part of the brain. Since ever, a scientist used this advantage of stimulating creativity during research. Sketching is an old language of science and not only in depicting but in visual thinking.

By working on location – the lowest common denominator – you have the time to observe the world and to reflect. This always changes the world a little bit.

And what is the quality of urban life today? What has resilience to do with it?

The Urban Sketchers tries to go a step further than just take pictures of urban spaces. He reflects by sketches situations in order to question them and to bring them in relation to history and society. With sketches, combined with own ideas, the new Urban Sketcher gets iterative design thinking answers of the question:

How looks the smart, resilient urban quality of life tomorrow?

The answer to this question will give us the students with their visual research, sketches, illustrations, ideas, photos and Wacom-drawings as well as with further new digital devices.

Cooperation with University of Rotterdam

We are happy to announce our cooperation with the University of Rotterdam. This cooperation is of greater value because multimedia producers need content.

The cooperation in the field of input, background in urban design on the one hand and sketching as ways to develop and find, as well as communicate new ideas on the other hand is key. The cooperation brings the two universities together. The University of Rotterdam is an innovative university with a specific focus on sustainability and resilience and urban planning as well as in the citizen design approach. The University of Applied Sciences HTW Chur/ BFH with its Bachelor in Multimedia Production is the leading degree in Media Communication in Switzerland and focusses on developing ideas with the visual tools sketching.

The fields of cooperations are: Know-How impact, joint teaching. mixed classes for interdisciplinarity and international exchange as well as access to infrastructure.

sketchcity at RDM Rotterdam

The sketchcity studyweek 6.-9-6-2017 will take place in Rotterdam and is a Collaboration between Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Chur/Berner Fachhochschule and the University of Rotterdam.

RDM Rotterdam is the hotspot for innovation in the port: this is where the manufacturing industry of the future is taking shape. The former shipyard of the Rotterdamsche Droogdok Maatschappij (RDM) – where shipbuilders once worked on world-famous vessels like the SS Rotterdam – is now home to a range of exciting private-sector, education and research initiatives. In the heart of the port area – but still surprisingly close to the city centre – they work on a range of innovations that will contribute to a ‘smarter port’. This is complemented by a wide array of business and cultural events, making RDM a uniquely dynamic environment to work in.