Climate Future Labs

OPEN_CULTURES

Open Planning Cultures. Design Principles for Transformative Spaces

The aim of the Climate Future Lab OPEN_CULTURES is to develop climate-sensitive design principles for urban development and spatial planning in order to enable sustainable forms of urban living.

The joint project Co_Living_Campus of the City of Braunschweig and TU Braunschweig has raised a fundamental question for just development and climate-adapted spatial planning in times of man-made climate change: How can climate knowledge be translated into sustainable living through design principles that directly support climate adaptation in urban development and spatial planning?

This question and the Co_Living_Campus project are the basis for the Climate Future Lab OPEN_CULTURES. In order to examine and close the translation gap between climate knowledge and sustainable living, OPEN_CULTURES aims to unravel the complex relationship between climate knowledge and the practice of urban design and sustainable living in three sub-labs. In close disciplinary collaboration and with the participation of stakeholder communities, these sub-labs will focus on key dimensions of climate-sensitive urban design:

  • Sub-Lab 1, OPEN_Planning, explores the role of participation in creating climate-sensitive forms of urban design (social dimension).
  • Sub-Lab 2, OPEN_Factory, asks how the design of buildings can support climate-sensitive forms of urban living (material dimension).
  • Sub-Lab 3, OPEN_Imaginaries, explores the ways in which ideas about climate change influence and are reproduced in everyday practices, and how climate change could be narrated differently to motivate sustainable living practices (symbolic dimension).

By integrating the results of the sub-labs, OPEN_CULTURES will be able to develop design principles based on disciplinary and non-disciplinary knowledge that can be applied in a broader spatial setting in Germany and beyond. OPEN_CULTURES is thus transdisciplinary in nature and aims to bridge disciplinary and expert/non-expert boundaries. OPEN_CULTURES combines the scientific expertise of researchers from the Technische Universität Braunschweig, the Julius Kühn Institute and the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg with a broad network of practice partners.

Spokesperson

Prof. Dr. Tatjana Schneider
Institute of History and Theory of Architecture and the City, TU Braunschweig
T+49 531 391 2347

Project partners

Practice partners