CapAsia is a unique field study which provides an extraordinary opportunity for its participants to experience the socially, culturally, and historically different south Asia through a strategy of cultural immersion and collaborative projects with the help of a network of scholars, professionals, and educators of design and planning in the region. By reflection, the participants develop a critical understanding of their own cultures and environments and an ability to locate themselves within a globalizing world. The experience is life-changing.

The main goal of CapAsia is to profoundly enhance the critical and creative thinking capability of the participants through the learning of social, cultural, spatial practices, and design and planning approaches in a radically different world-region, and to facilitate the processes of learning about their own cultures, environments, and their larger global con text. During its main component, the collaborative project, the participants reside in a particular city in South Asia, tea m up with students from the collaborating school, and undertake a locally-based project.

CapAsia III is organized around the theme of planned cities and spontaneous settlements within indigenous, colonial, and postcolonial contexts. It focuses on the negotiation of space at various scales between the formal institutions which impose spatial structures and communities and individuals who carve out spheres of autonomy for their own social and cultural practices. It will also highlight western/non-western interactions and the models of development as represented in south and east Asia. These themes would structure the participant experience around a meaningful cross section of world architecture, cities, and landscapes. By reflection, the participants will enhance the understanding of their own natural, built, and urban environments, which they will see in a different light.