INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP AUSCHWITZ Ir. Michiel Smits

Location: Oswiecim (Auschwitz, Poland)

Participating countries: Germany, Netherlands, Poland and France

Date: 10-2009

Description

To introduce our MSc1 trajectory, the TU Delft was invited to participate in the international workshop in Oswiecim, which was organized by International University Krakow. I was asked to be group leader, which I accepted readily. The study focused on the definition of different boundaries in Oswiecim and how these could be used for a design project or how some limits could be blurred. The workshop ended with a presentation for the city of Oswiecim. Here we let the congregation see that with very few resources one could create solutions that could give a lot more quality to everyday life in the city.

Ultimately, our project received quite a lot of praise because it precisely met the current context and values, also we produced simple solutions which could be executed immediately. Ultimately, this research and my design assignment was chosen as the only entry of the foreign MSc1 route for publication. This was publicised in the autumn of 2011. In addition, the professors involved, asked me to come to their university to teach.