More than 100,000 air-conditioned tents provide accommodation to pilgrims in Muna, or the Tent City, Saudi Arabia.
More than 100,000 air-conditioned tents provide accommodation to pilgrims in Muna, or the Tent City, Saudi Arabia. © Arisdp

Today, the scale and pace of contemporary urbanization is challenging the notion of permanence as a basic condition of cities. Ephemeral landscapes of pop-up settlements are constantly increasing in scale and challenging the idea of the city as a stable and unchanging entity. For this workshop Rahul Mehrotra, principal of architecture firm RMA Architects and Chair of Urban Planning and Design at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, leads a series of discussions designed with the goal of understanding the needs, arrangements and social structures of ephemeral settlements around the world.

Free and open to all. Places are limited; please RSVP at [email protected]. As part of the program Mehrotra will give a lecture The case of the Kumbh Mela in India at 6:30 pm on Thursday 13 February.