The regeneration of the urban industrial waterfront has gathered pace in European and North American cities since the mid-20th century, with varying degrees of success, the notable origin being the concept of the festival marketplace established by Benjamin Thompson around Faneuil Hall in Boston in the 1960s. (Frieden & Sagalyn, 1991) After this legacy, the question arises: How can the emerging generation of 21st-century urbanists refine and rethink approaches to waterfront regeneration that maximize the opportunities for future-facing, sustainable, distinctive, and environmentally robust place-making to strengthen the future resilience, purpose, function, and well-being of our cities? In 2023 -24 students from the Manchester School of Architecture (MSA) and the Riseba University of Applied Sciences, Faculty of Architecture and Design (Riseba FAD) embarked upon an initial year-long collaborative studio design process in which each student group developed master planning and design proposals for sites in the partner university’s city region to explore these goals. Our collaborators at Riseba for this academic year were Professors Rudolfs Dainis Smits, Efe Duyan, Helena Gutmane, and Jonas Buechel.

Riga’s Hydrocity is one example of a wider project developed within the Architecture and Urbanism Master Studios. The studio runs in three semesters, divided into 5 Urban labs, each dealing with a specific urbanism topic in Barcelona, Berlin, Karystos, and Manchester. As a specific case of investigation, the cooperation between Riseba and MSA has been developed with the Contextual Urbanism Lab. Therefore, in conjunction with the above, this paper wants to define Urban Labs’ pedagogical strategies as a foundation to retrace a roadmap to resilient cities worldwide.

Post-industrial inner urban waterside sites were selected in both Latvia and the U.K., which embodied the challenges and opportunities for reinvention and repurposing through sustainable development that could be relevant to comparable sites in other cities and countries in the future.

Key questions and objectives were woven into and underpinned by the studio brief and process.

The paper follows the outline below. Firstly, the commonalities and variances of the site are described. Then, the pedagogical conditions in each school and the appropriation of remote learning and teaching strategies for new design and research methods are discussed in the literature review. Having established their context, the methodological section follows, where the specifics of the studio structure are outlined. A discussion of student participation and the impact on their work follows before the pedagogical results are placed in context. The paper closes with a discussion of the ongoing and future collaboration currently being undertaken in the second year of the collaborative studio.

Our Combined Urban Lab explored the diverse opportunities and challenges for the Riga and Birkenhead sites through the studio collaboration under the theme of Edge City (Farley & Roberts, 2012) and urban studies undertaken at the sequentially increasing focus of city, neighbourhood and site scales. The project spanned across a number of different parameters within the two schools. Foremost among them was the relative disparity in size between the institutions, MSA having ten times the number of enrolled students as Riseba FAD. Secondly, about 30 postgraduate students participated in Manchester, while approximately 40 students from Riga, divided between postgraduates and undergraduates, participated. In Manchester, there was a year-long project, while in Riga, a research phase by master's students was used for peer-to-peer teaching of undergraduates, with a small number of master's students returning to the Birkenhead sites for their master's thesis design projects. This method has already been replicated in the current academic year (2024-25), further establishing the collaborative relationship and developing new research fields connected to the project regarding contextual urbanism.

Students tested and developed well-established urban design and masterplanning methodologies in developing proposals for repurposed sustainable urban districts employed across both schools and their respective sites, and from initial ‘shared’ briefs. This research employed both quantitative and qualitative methods. Subsequent variances in the design process and approach between the schools were then noted and reflected upon. The design methodology is rooted in an analysis of existing site conditions as overlain and measurable ‘layers’, the methodology informed by integrating Ian McHarg’s physical principles of Ecological Determinism (McHarg, 1969) with the human and placemaking values and considerations set out in Moudon’s ‘nine areas of concentration’ (Moudon, 1992). The resulting methodology comprised four key considerations:

• Green and blue

By exploring the edges, boundaries and interfaces between the city and its landscape setting, between urban districts and natural systems and waterways, between islands and the mainland, and between buildings and their public realm, sustainable, ecologically effective and distinctive green and blue networks can be developed within which built form is framed. [(Beatley, 2014) ;(Steiner et al., 2019)]

• Movement

By considering the edge and relationship between distinctive contained neighbourhoods and the movement networks that transcend boundaries and connect them, future-facing mobility systems and transit-oriented development can enhance both urban function and the placemaking experiential qualities of arrival, departure and the visual journey between places (Calthorpe, 1993).

• Built Form

Meaningful solutions can be explored by examining and reflecting on societal and built heritage, the collective memory of a place, and the liminal space between past and present. The optimal mix of both new and repurposed building and land uses that embraces and propels new learning and innovation districts, that establish adaptable future forms of housing, and that seedbed fully integrated community infrastructure can also promote design excellence and celebrate the genius loci (Katz & Wagner, 2014).

• Archipelagic strategy

Exploring urban morphology through the lens of an archipelagic strategy, interrupted city patterns can be investigated as an urban palimpsest, reinterpreting multiple environmental complexities. The archipelagic strategy reflects the idea that urban differences can coexist, developing new networks and urban ecosystems [(Ungers et al., 2013); (Stephens & Martínez-San Miguel, 2024)].

The methodology employed in the Hydrocity project between MSA and Riseba was structured to facilitate comprehensive collaboration and creative exchange across different academic and cultural contexts. This section outlines how the collaboration was organised and executed to achieve the project’s goals of exploring sustainable urban regeneration at post-industrial waterfront sites in Riga and Birkenhead. The collaboration between MSA and Riseba was designed to integrate seamlessly, treating the two institutions as a unified entity for the project’s duration. This approach ensured that students and educators from both sides were actively engaged in a reciprocal learning process, sharing insights, methodologies, and cultural perspectives throughout the academic year. The primary activities included:

Regular sessions were conducted online and in person, alternating between Riga and Birkenhead. These sessions featured lectures by faculty members from each institution aimed at providing foundational knowledge and context-specific to the sites under study.

Integral to the methodology were site visits where students could be exposed to the physical context of their projects. These visits included guided tours, discussions with local stakeholders, and interactive workshops encouraging collaborative problem-solving and design exploration.

Formal review sessions (as seen in Figure 3) marked key points in the project’s development. These sessions enabled students to present their work-in-progress to peers and faculty from both institutions, receiving constructive feedback that supported their understanding and improved their final design proposals.

Mixed groups were formed during tutorials and workshops (as seen in Figure 4) to foster cross-cultural understanding and diverse perspectives. This intentional mixing of students from the two different contexts encouraged dialogue, challenged assumptions, and broadened the scope of creative solutions proposed (Qu et al., 2019).

An Urban Lab consultant model introduced expert perspectives at key project stages, enabling students to incorporate specialised knowledge into their design processes. This approach provided an applied understanding of urbanism’s complex multi-actor dynamics (Qu et al., 2019).

The online collaboration between MSA and Riseba was designed to represent a pioneering approach to international education. This innovative format aimed to showcase a new way of learning and teaching that expands opportunities for cross-cultural engagement and exploration. The online format was employed as a deliberate strategy to enhance the educational experience, and it was designed to explore the benefits of digital tools and platforms, offering a flexible, accessible, and interactive learning environment. The ambition behind this approach was to transcend traditional educational boundaries and create a richer, more inclusive learning experience. Throughout the academic year, the online sessions were carefully structured to maximise clarity and effectiveness in delivering content and encouraging student interaction. Each online session began with a structured introduction outlining the agenda, objectives, and expected outcomes. This approach provided a clear framework for the session, helping students to understand the focus and purpose of the day’s activities. Furthermore, interactive tools were utilised to facilitate active participation and ensure meaningful engagement with the content and fellow students.

The collaborative sessions were delivered by faculty members and designed to be both informative and engaging, bridging the gap between theoretical knowledge and practical application. Lectures were tailored to provide a contextual understanding of theoretical frameworks in relation to the specific challenges and opportunities presented by the urban regeneration projects in Riga and Birkenhead. This approach helped students relate theoretical concepts to real-world scenarios. In terms of feedback, sessions were conducted via video conferencing, allowing for detailed critique and discussion of the students’ work.

One of the key factors that each school has learnt from each other is how relationships might be established between British and European architecture schools post-Brexit. After a very productive period of over two decades of enthusiastic participation in various aspects of the Erasmus programme, Brexit has resulted in the curtailment of such collaboration. Manchester School of Architecture had many links with Barcelona, Berlin, Kassel, Lyon, Marseilles, Milan, Palermo, Paris and Venice, for example. These relationships lasted over several years, either in the form of student exchanges or through participation in intensive programmes. They impacted the programmes in each participating university, leading to a sharing of contexts, knowledge and pedagogical methods. For the staff in Manchester, this fulfilled an imperative to be internationally active as a means of enhancing the research environment, and for students, it broadened their experience of the teaching environment to an international scale. An Erasmus Intensive Workshop, such as ‘Archaeology’s Places and Contemporary Uses’ between 2009 and 2012, as well as producing research by design proposals for real-world problems, built up the networks of academics and the future work connections of students and young professionals in architecture and other disciplines. (Vanore, 2010)

Such experiences’ fleeting and intangible impact should not be seen as having little worth. They are the fundamental architectural and urban education activity in a co-dependent world. In recognition of this global ambition, for example, the Royal Institute of British Architects validates nearly as many architecture courses outside the United Kingdom as it does within it. Maintaining that international focus after Brexit was mainly seen through the lens of the profession, but education played a significant role in creating that environment. (British Architects, 2017) While non-EU activities, including enrolment and exchange, have increased in recent years in Manchester as internationally attractive courses have expanded (notably the MA in Architecture and Urbanism), activities with our nearest neighbours have declined. This new relationship between Manchester and Riga should be seen as part of relearning the relationship with a European partner, where each school is exposed to the different sizes and complexities of teaching in each institution, although physical contexts and working practices are not that different in ambition. The results of this research must be explored in pedagogy through the collaborative Urban Studio instrument. The impact on the participating students was education for their future careers as internationally resilient designers. The project work of both cohorts of students was disseminated through public exhibitions in Riga (March 2024) and Manchester (June 2024) and in academic and professional publications [(Duyan & Smits, 2024); (Quayle et al., 2025)]. Consequently, this paper finds significance in its speculative approach to how an international collaborative urban lab has been a fruitful and active research pedagogy investigation that amplified architecture and urbanism students’ experience.

One of the discussions that deserves attention must be raised in terms of project constraints; both schools had to deal with the difficulties of the scale to which the final outcomes must refer. The Birkenhead projects produced by students in Riga focused on the larger urban planning and landscape scale. In contrast, the outcomes of the Manchester projects produced for Riga sites raised a number of issues regarding the scalability of urban strategies and architectural scale. The continuity of this process of nesting scales requires different skills, which, on many occasions, highlighted some limitations of this study. Consequently, one of the challenges was engaging students with interdisciplinary consultancy offered by external expertise. Introducing a specific urban consultancy as external expertise made the urban project realistic regarding architectural decisions. Some of the urban regeneration topics addressed by the students, like the river waterfront, the infrastructure and green systems, required interaction with experts. This level of communication guarantees a more specific adaptation of students’ research interests into an architecture design solution.

From the perspective of the immediate future of this research, the tighter focus of the experimental sites for the following academic year encourages the students to read the distinct morphology of each place. In the academic year 2024-25, central Riga and Holt Town in Manchester were chosen in reaction to the previous sites so that less generalised solutions might be produced which draw on the particular heritage of each place, the Hanseatic and nineteenth-century heritage of Riga and the industrial context of Manchester. The developing collaboration thus integrates into the histories of the sites by addressing the fragmented urban forms of post-Soviet Riga and post-industrial Manchester. These developments in the pedagogical collaboration have been framed by further online critique sessions and field trips by students from the two cohorts.

Conclusion

As an educational experience confronted with remote locations both physically and culturally, this exchange of student experience provides the foundation for future collaborations at personal and institutional levels. Students from different non-European backgrounds who were enrolled at one European institution collaborated successfully with those at another, providing a simulation of the globalised working practices in architecture and urbanism that technology facilitates. The direct culmination of these working strategies and honing the types of compatible contexts towards joint research projects is an ambition that this pedagogical experience helps establish for future academic years. It promotes the idea that contextual urbanism, in its variety and specificity, is of global concern and that it provides a stimulus towards the sustainable ideal of thinking globally but acting locally. The collaboration between MSA and Riga urban labs draws the first educational leadership with the ambition to build a new roadmap for architecture and urbanism students who are facing unprecedented architecture and urban challenges.

The abstract of this paper was presented at the Urban Planning & Architectural Design for Sustainable Development (UPADSD) Conference – 9th Edition, which was held on the 22^nd - 24^th of October, 2024.