Raw Earth & Ruralities

After a first edition in Navarre, Spain, the Summer school Rurapolis comes back, this time in the multifaceted region of Asturias. It will take place over ten days from the 29th of August to the 7th of September 2024 and will be structured around a series of lectures at the LABoral Art Center in Gijón with well-known personalities at European level, and a prospective explorations of the territory where the students will be sent on different paths in order to discover on their own way the multiple post-industrial, peri-rural and natural landscapes of Asturias. Then, small architectures/artefacts/totems made of raw earth and mixed techniques will be developed on a former mining site in a remote village of the Valle de Turón in the centre of Asturias. The training will be carried out by a team of architects and raw earth experts. At the end of the stay, the collectively designed architectural objects will host a cultural and festive event, making the reactivation of neglected rural and post-industrial installations on this territory possible and attractive.

Course leader

ÉNSA Versailles / NO-CITY open inter-university educational programme. Lectures by Sergio Sebastián, Déchelette Architecture, Jaime Izquierdo and Susanne Stacher. The construction workshop will be lead by a team of raw earth professionals and architects.

Target group

The Summer school Rurapolis is open to architecture students and to anyone interested by the thematic.

Course aim

The aim of the Summer school RURAPOLIS is to physically grasp the problematic of rurality, rural depopulation, the challenges of reactivating post-industrial sites, and the future of territorial development politics through lectures provided by regional as well as international experts in the topic, self-construction using reused materials and various raw earth techniques that open many possibilities for future sustainable designs.