This seminar examines issues in Contemporary Urban and Architectural Design Theory. The key thematic will be Foucault's ambiguous use of the word "heterotopia" , the place of the "other", the exceptions and exccluded from any system. Foucault used this word to describe places that became especially differentiated, segregated and specialized in the process of modernization (at the scale of the society, an organization or a building). They had multiple cells, mirrored the larger society and formed cities in miniature.