Different types of inputs were provided to the students in order to open their minds towards adaptive ways to approach ‘wicked problems’. Expert inputs from the German team included topics such as assemblage thinking, systemic design, urban metabolism, and subversive urbanism; inputs from the Brazilian partners focussed on urban informality in Brazil, favelas as tactics of resistance and transformation, informality in popular housing in Brazil, self-management and social movements, and sustainable sanitation. Additionally, local knowledge was imparted by local actors representing historical, personal and situational knowledge from their life-world contexts. 

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The summer school took on a dual design strategy with the aim of integrating knowledge for the development of systemic scenarios while developing ideas for micro-interventions to stimulate such scenarios. The idea was to further collaborative work among all stakeholders and to consider interactions that involved human and non-human actors. Some of those considerations involved spatial relationships, metabolic systems such as food systems, water, waste, natural systems, information flows, political structures and others. Proposals and systemic scenarios were highly influenced by the needs and wishes of the dwellers, their political agenda, and the availability of materials. Social events, gathering and sharing activities played a major role throughout the knowledge-transfer phase and the collaborative work. 

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