Modulverantwortung: Caroline Ting
Lehrteam: Caroline Ting, Assistant: João Moreira

On Ordinariness

This seminar explores contemporary urban conditions through the lens of ordinariness. Drawing on critical urban theory, it challenges approaches that define urbanity primarily through exception, spectacle, or temporary events, and instead focuses on how urban permanence is produced through everyday routines, repetition, and habitual use. What persists in cities and places often does so not by standing out, but by becoming familiar and taken for granted.
Engaging with theories of ordinary cities and comparative urban thinking, the module examines how urban knowledge is structured and how theoretical categories shape the ways spaces are perceived, valued, and analysed. Particular attention is paid to the relationship between theory, method, and spatial practice, and to the ways in which urban theory frames spaces prior to analysis or design.
A central aim of the seminar is to enable students to critically reflect on their own disciplinary practice. Through close engagement with theoretical texts and the application of conceptual frameworks to concrete urban contexts, students learn to approach spaces analytically rather than intuitively, and to question established modes of reading and producing space. The seminar aims to strengthen students’ abilities in critical reading, conceptual analysis, and theory-based spatial interpretation, supporting the development of a reflective and theoretically informed approach to urban and spatial practice.