The Department of Urban and Regional Planning (DPWK) Undip in collaboration with the University of Hawai’i at Manoa held a Summer Course with the theme “Sustainability and Resilience in the Spatial Development”. The course, held from 16 to 25 July 2024, was attended by students from various countries, offline or online. The opening ceremony took place at Theater Room, DPWK Undip.

The Head of DPWK Undip, Prof. Dr-Ing Wiwandari Handayani, S.T, M.T, MPS, explains that this Summer Course has been held together for the third time with the Urban and Regional Planning, University of Hawai’i at Manoa. As Prof. Wiwandari said, there is a slight difference between this year’s course and the previous years. This year, apart from being held in hybrid using MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) platform, the participants also received a two-day symposium on Pedagogy and Urban Planning in collaboration with LuceSea Foundation, University of Hawai’i at Manoa.

“This year is a little bit different, because we combine the course with our research with LuceSea Foundation on Pedagogy and Urban Planning, so we have a two-day symposium, combined with a site visit later,” Prof. Wiwandari said.

This year, Summer Course participants had the opportunity to join the symposium on Pedagogy and Urban Planning in collaboration with LuceSea Foundation, University of Hawai’i at Manoa

Representative from the University of Hawai’i and Manoa, Assoc. Prof. Ashok Das, M.Arch, M.A, Ph.D, warmly appreciated this Summer Course. Ashok said that Semarang is an interesting place because there are tons of issues that can be learn. He hopes that students can learn many things from Semarang.

“There are not many very interesting places like Semarang. You have all kinds of issues. You have economic development issues, climate change, sea level rise, tradition, culture, in tassel in sort of conflict with modernization, urbanization, and the erasure of culture and heritage,” states Ashok.

Summer Course participants engage in a direct dialogue with the affected residents in Sayung Village, Demak

Besides visiting the residents affected by climate change in Demak dan Semarang, the participants also had the opportunity to learn how to do batik in Laksmi Art Batik

In this Summer Course, the participants did not only receive materials and studio classes. The participants also had the opportunity to visit several places affected by climate change to learn directly with local communities, such as in Sayung Village and Tambakrejo. Other than that, the participants had the opportunity to learn how to do batik at Laksmi Art Batik

Jacob Wruck, one of the participants from the United States, was delighted with this Summer Course. He said that this program is a good opportunity to learn directly with affected residents. “The course was fantastic. We get to go to the communities, talk to the people, and see some of the factors (that causing) those situations…It’s been very good to get our hands on and get to ask people some questions that are supposed to be reaped not only from researching inside the class,” said Jacob.