Planning and Design for the Just City
An annual two-week programme at TU Delft combining spatial planning, urban design and environmental technology to put spatial justice at the centre of urban development.
What the school does
Two weeks of site visits, studio work and conversation with practitioners, structured around a single analytic lens.
Since 2014 I have organised and led this summer school at the Department of Urbanism, TU Delft, originally under the title Planning and Designing with Water. Since 2022, Caroline Newton has co-managed the programme alongside me, and it now carries the name Planning and Design for the Just City, a change that reflects an expanded brief: spatial justice, rather than water management alone, now organises the curriculum, although the Dutch tradition of planning and design with water remains a live reference throughout.
The school combines spatial planning, urban design and environmental technology to address spatial justice, sustainability and climate adaptation in urban transitions. Participants spend two weeks on site visits, talks with practitioners and academics, and a studio-based exercise in which they produce a spatial vision, a spatial strategy and design interventions for an area in the city of Delft, one of the historic centres of the Dutch delta urbanism tradition. The Hague, a long-standing partner city, has also featured as a case in past editions.
Participants put spatial justice at the centre of urban development, working through the theories and practices that connect it to sustainability rather than treating the two as separate concerns.
The curriculum is anchored in the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the New Urban Agenda launched in Quito in 2016, and the European Green Deal. The school’s work contributes specifically to SDG 4 (quality education), SDG 11 (sustainable cities and communities) and SDG 13 (climate action).
The school is organised by the Centre for the Just City, a research and teaching platform within the Department of Urbanism at TU Delft, together with the Chair of Spatial Planning and Strategy. It runs in partnership with the faculties of Architecture and the Built Environment and of Technology, Policy and Management at TU Delft, the Delft Design for Values Institute and the TU Delft Global Platform.
- City of The Hague
- Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management
- Dutch Delta Programme
- Arcadis
- Deltares
- City of Delft
Apply or find out more
Applications open every November and close in February. For questions, write to summerschool-bk@tudelft.nl and mention “Summer School Delft”.