DENMARK, Copenhagen: KEA Charrette International Design Workshop

KEA Charrette 2025: The Art of Keeping - Sustainability through Care and Maintenance

KEA Copenhagen School of Design and Technology is happy to invite students and lecturers once again to be part of the Charrette workshop at KEA.  Students from various design disciplines are welcome to participate; Architecture, Urban Design, Interior Design, Graphic Design, Visual Communication, Product Design, Digital Design, Web Development, Fashion and Jewelry Design as well as Marketing/Business Development and Concept Development. 
It is important that the students and lecturers are interested in working across disciplines and learning, listening, and developing outside their own field. 

The theme for the Charrette is still being developed, but as always sustainability will be at the heart of the theme, and we can’t wait to share the specifics of the theme with you soon! 

The participation cost will be around €380-400 per student (including workshop fee, accommodation Saturday-Saturday, local transportation, daytime meals etc.).  

THE FRAME
1 week
100 students and advisors from all over the globe (10 Fontys students and 2 advisors)
Local organisations and companies in Copenhagen
10 innovative solutions
Unlimited network opportunities

ERASMUS 
The Charrette is again offered as an Erasmus BIP project and students are able to apply for BIP funding. 

Objectives and Description
Maintaining and caring are quickly becoming more important concepts within sustainability practices.
As Shannon Mattern argues in her article ‘Maintenance and Care’ (2018), maintaining, as a practice, is not just about fixing things; it’s an ongoing practice that involves care, attention and sustaining our built and social environment.
Simply put; if we maintain something, we care for i t and that creates more sustainable futures and communities as maintained things (material and social) last longer and creates communities of action.
Putting maintenance and care at the forefront is a call for recognizing and valuing this work as essential for creating sustainable and equitable communities. It is in other words not necessary to build or create new solutions – it is firstly necessary to look at what already is and maintain and care for that.

Methods and Outcomes

• As students you will engage with the overall difficult question by engaging with a local urban space.
• Your task will be to come up with a concept for maintenance that fosters care for what is already there.
• In other words, you will need to analyze the space and point towards what is worth maintaining and caring for in this space and why.
• You will then need to come up with a concept for how to create practices of maintaining and caring in the space.

SIGN UP - REGISTRATION IS CLOSED!!
Registration is open for 10 Fontys students ICT & Media Design and 2 lecturers to participate the Charrette as advisors.
Students can sign up through the form on the right. You will receive a confirmation of participation with detailed information for followup. 

CHECK OUT
You can learn more about the Charrette (including former projects) here.