The City as Site: Dubai and Beyond is my second study abroad course at RIT. The first was located in Croatia in 2011. The premise for the City as Site model is the utilization of locale as both a classroom and a site for learning. The focus of this collaborative participatory course is to get the student out of the traditional classroom and into the world where field research becomes the seminal process in learning to see, experience, understand and develop an awareness of a place and its culture.

 

Three stages of learning:
 

Data collection: Field research was an integral and continuous part of the course. Students kept a daily journal as a means to share individual experiences and interpretations of place each day. From these writings, each student provided the group with a pair of “stickies.” One contained a single word association for their daily experience, and a second contained a statement about an unexpected encounter that occurred during that day. Together these words and writings served as a summation of each day on the ground in the UAE.

Collaboration: RIT students worked in teams with students from the department of Architecture at the American University of Sharjah to re-think the contemporary souvenir as a means of capturing the contained and portable essence of place.
 

Project outcomes: The final phase of this course was completed in Rochester, where students used their field research as the starting point to develop individual projects.