Urban waste land, empty buildings, disused products, and forgotten brands: evacuated fields are valuable resources that can be awakened to new life, fresh use, and unexpected revaluation. Unconventional transformation processes open up new opportunities and create new business sectors in abandoned areas.

Reconsidering and reactivating existing structures and finding ingenious solutions for the re-use of that which has been declared obsolete should become a prime motivator for today's designers, planners and architects. The joint symposium planned by urban drift productions and the Zollverein School of management and design will focus on unusual strategies in challenging situations. International speakers from the world of business, academia, architecture, and design present samples of best practice and multidisciplinary strategies for a successful revitalisation of evacuated fields.

The symposium is based on curator Francesca Ferguson s Entry exhibition, Talking Cities, and will be held in English.