Urban Colloquium 2 investigates what exactly is meant by ‘design’ and ‘designing’ in the dual context of urban ecologies and urban practices. The course is based on the premise that design plays an important role in framing the multi-dimensionality of urban experience and in instrumentalizing urban conflict towards a radical reorganization of urban socio-spatial systems and relations of economic and political power. The course suggest ways in which design challenges conventional practices of urban development and urbanization, highlight masked contradictions of spatial politics, and facilitate the self-expression, organization, and universalization of political claims of the traditionally excluded social groups. Design thus acts as a critical medium through which ‘preferred’ urban futures can be imagined and enacted. In order to understand the role of design beyond its conformist professional applications, the course explores expanded definitions, scopes, and practices of designing, and frames an expanded field of design as a socio-spatial praxis diffused among varied stakeholders in the social space of civil society. Urban Colloquium 2 is structured around alternating guest lectures and group discussions, framed by the overarching theme that connects design, urban practice, urbanism, and processes of radical democratization. Guest speakers are innovative and alternative urbanists and urban practitioners from the realms of art and design, but also social sciences, political activism, and advocacy. Topics and illustrative projects include, but are not limited to, community mobilizations, innovative design processes, new scales of intervention, strategic urban transformations, socio-spatial justice, sustainability strategies, and The New Green Deal.