Winter Semester 2019/20
Knowledge creates cities
In the transition from an industrial and knowledge society, knowledge is becoming increasingly important as a "new raw material" for urban life. Universities, educational and research institutions are becoming magnets for talent, while at the same time fostering creativity and innovation. Against this backdrop, the focus is involuntarily on the spatial alliance between university and city: the university has been inextricably linked to the city since its creation in the Middle Ages, although both the cities and the universities have undergone major changes since then. The concept of university and college as ivory towers of knowledge and higher education has changed fundamentally since the Second World War and the phase of "educational expansion" and the founding of new universities in the 1960s and 1970s. Today, the synergy effects between the city and the university have long since found their way into the diverse strategies of urban development. Universities can demonstrably increase the attractiveness of a city and a region. Many cities use this insight when drawing up master plans in order to strengthen the contribution of universities to urban identity.
Universities and colleges also play a major role as economic factors in cities and regions: as employers due to the purchasing power of students and university members or because they provide highly qualified workers.
At the same time, education and knowledge are the central foundations of our society. This insight into the "learning society" is increasingly finding its way into the debate about the design of educational institutions - from day care centres to schools and university buildings. Space, knowledge and pedagogy form an inseparable symbiosis.
The Urban Design Colloquium aims to focus on the role of the university as a motor for urban development and to pose the associated questions about the interaction between knowledge and the city: Which synergy effects between educational and research institutions can be identified? How can the increased living needs of students, researchers and teachers be spatially answered? ... The Urban Design Colloquium will address these questions and promote strategies for new alliances between knowledge and the city.
To the events:
Tue., 05.11.2019, 6 p.m. - From the "Ivory Tower" to the City of Knowledge
Tue., 10.12.2019, 6 p.m. - Concepts for the city of tomorrow
Tue., 14.01.2020, 6 p.m. - Knowledge-based urban development