Summer school: Thinking Hands

International Summer School of Architecture – Thinking Hands
Dobrava pri Škocjanu,  Slovenia

2 weeks · 4 modules · Building, thinking, and questioning with our hands

In the summer of 2026 we invite you to the village of Dobrava near Škocjan for an intensive two-week international summer school.

While the modern world produces billions of tons of non-degradable plastic every year, we choose to build differently: slowly, consciously, and with materials that speak the language of the earth.

Over two weeks we will work with soil, stone, wood, and local knowledge through four interconnected modules:

1. Building a Pavilion with Earth
Mentors: Matej Andraž Vogrinčič (Art), Matevž Granda (Earth)
Hands-on construction using rammed earth, cob and other natural techniques. Learning directly from the material that breathes with us.

2. Building a Chicken Coop
Mentors: Klara Zalokar & Gerrit Müller-Scheeßel
Designing and constructing a small, meaningful structure in 1:1 scale using local and natural materials. From idea to finished object.

3. Renovation in Practice
Mentor: Matevž Granda
Real renovation work on heritage buildings, approached with sensitivity, curiosity, and deep respect for what already exists.

4. Critical Dialogues
Mentors: Nina Granda & Nina Dolar
Evening and daytime conversations on the ethics of architecture, resistance to consumer culture, the value of manual knowledge, and what kind of building we need in the Anthropocene.

Why Dobrava pri Škocjanu?

Because this village is home to Outsider’s Centre for Building with Earth — the place where, for years, we have returned to dig, mix, and build with raw soil.

Through multiple international workshops we have tested rammed earth, built prototypes, repaired walls, and shaped small structures together. It is the same spirit that gave life to the Park of Oracles earth pavilions: collaborative, hands-dirty architecture born from earth and shared effort.

Between meadows, forest, and the Krka River, Dobrava offers the perfect ground for Thinking Hands — where thought truly passes through the palms, where we learn from the material instead of dominating it, and where we can imagine a different way of building in the age of plastic waste.

Why “Thinking Hands”?

The name comes from Juhani Pallasmaa’s seminal book The Thinking Hand, in which he shows how the human hand is not just an executor, but a thinking organ that connects imagination, body, and material in a way no computer can.

At Outsider we have long collaborated with Pallasmaa — we translated and published his book Rootedness — because we share his belief that architecture must be deeply embodied, rooted, and made with care.

Thinking Hands means: we think through making. We learn by getting our hands dirty with earth, wood, and stone. We resist the disembodied, image-driven architecture of our time and return to the wisdom that arises when hand, material, and mind work together.

This is the foundation of everything we do.