In this 2 day workshop, architect and Strelka’s postgraduate program co-director Nicolay Boyadjiev will present an overview of the themes, conceptual provocations and collaborative methodologies driving The Terraforming think tank at the Strelka Institute for Media Architecture and Design in Moscow. The Terraforming is a 3-year multidisciplinary initiative blending architecture, design-research and philosophy to investigate the future role and growing agency of cities as the planetary network by which we occupy the Earth’s surface.

During the workshop, participants will learn alternatives to mainstream design culture “optimising” for pre-determined outcomes by framing different questions, expanding the space of possibility and proposing more appropriate design interventions across more appropriate timeframes, scales and disciplines. The workshop presents an overview of the think tank’s unique design-research approach by asking how trans-disciplinary designers and other practitioners can work collaboratively at this critical juncture in order to communicate more ambitious, ambiguous and open-ended concepts to more appropriate and less conventional audiences.