Research Projects
Overview of Specialist Groups
Urban Design, Building Culture and Urban Monument Preservation
In the specialist group "Urban Design, Building Culture, and Urban Historic Preservation", the focus is on questions of suitable mixes of uses and appropriate public spaces for our society, as well as on the influences of certain functions on inner- and suburban neighborhoods and villages. Another focus lies in the development of a sustainable approach to the urban heritage – especially of the 20th century.
Urban Design, Building Culture and Urban Monument Preservation
Campus Development
Research cluster on Sustainable Campus Development brings together research projects and network activities on the environmentally conscious and socially inclusive transformation of campus areas in Europe. There is an increasing number of attempts to develop strategic plans and actions to transform university campuses through interventions in design and planning, energy, mobility, and circularity, among others. These developments are in the line of research, policy and public debates on climate change as an urgent issue to tackle through a systematic action plan. University campuses may potentially have a high impact on climate change mitigation and adaptation, as they accommodate a various number of highly educated and skilled communities.
RWTH Aachen University, Chair and Institute of Urban Design and European Urbanism is actively involved in sustainable transformation processes at the RWTH campus and closely collaborates with the IDEA League partners to organise joint events, research and teaching initiatives on this topic.
Technical Innovations and Mobility
The specialist group "Technical Innovations and Mobility" focuses on innovations with spatial relevance that will change our cities in the coming years. This includes examining the influence of new technologies and new forms of mobility or the transformation of current mobility on urban space and urban development.
Ressources and Energy
The specialist group "Resources and Energy" is dedicated to the challenges of climate change and the energy transition for a climate-neutral society. Energy and resource efficiency from the neighborhood to the city as a whole are taken into consideration in order to develop new spatial models, adequate planning and control models. Questions of land and space use for land-saving urban development are also addressed.
Shaping Regional Development
The specialist group "Shaping Regional Development" focuses on accompanying spatial structural change, especially in the Rhenish mining area and the tri-national Rhine-Ruhr-Meuse agglomeration. The focus lies in the elaboration of local opportunities in various spatially relevant fields of action, the development of spatial guiding ideas based on these, and the involvement of municipalities and citizens in the context of real-life laboratories.
The STADTWERKSTATT
The STADTWERKSTATT sees itself as a meeting space between the actors of the universities, the city and civil society. Here we discuss ideas, projects and concepts for shaping the future of the city and region.
Cities Building Culture
The collaborative research project between the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), RWTH Aachen University, GWZO Leipzig and their Russian partners aims at developing new approaches to the sustainable management of cultural heritage in the post-Soviet space.
UNESCO Chair Projects
The activities of the UNESCO Chair include research and teaching as well as advisory services for the UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The UNESCO Chair collaborates with several RWTH Aachen institutes in order to optimally fulfill its responsibilities.
Initiative: Urban Central Campus
The Initiative Urban Central Campus pursues the goal of qualifying the Aachen inner-city campus in terms of urban development and creating a lively center of RWTH Aachen University at the interface to the old town.
Network: IDEA League Summer School
University campuses potentially may have a high impact on climate change mitigation, as they accommodate various high educated and skilled communities, who are well organised through students’ organisations, research and administrative bodies, and workers unions, among others.
Network: IDEA League Expert Working Group
Founding a new network for design exchange with all the five IDEA League Universities for the challenge of campus development. To find innovative architectural and urban design solutions for improving growing university campuses as urban learning and living areas.
5GAIN
5G Infrastructures for cellular energy systems enhanced through artificial intelligence.
Flexible electrical grids II: DC Socio-Economics
Direct current (DC) technologies have a high potential for energy system transformation. There are historical and technological reasons why it has not been used sufficiently so far. The Institute of Urban Design investigates the spatial planning aspects of the use of DC technologies.
Network: Mobility Experience Aachen
Since June 2020 the chair and the Institute of Urban Design are associated partners in the network Erlebniswelt Mobilität Aachen (EMA). The network exists since 2018 and develops with partners from economy, research and municipalities ideas and funding applications in the field of mobility of the future.
Further information can be found here.
Network: Center for Metropolitan Cities
The sustainability goals of the United Nations, the German federal government and the government of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia are at the center of the activities of the Metropolitan Cities Center: The Center is helping the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region to move significantly closer to carbon neutrality and resource conservation.
Further information can be found here.
POWER
Potentials of water cycles for collaborative and efficient energy and resource use in high-density mixed-use building blocks
R2Q - Resource plan in the neightborhood
The R2Q research project aims to develop a methodology for assessing and improving resource efficiency in urban districts. The output of the project will be a new planning instrument, the ResourcePlan, which will enable a systematic, efficient and method-oriented management of resources in the neighbourhood.
Network: Profil area ECPE
Profile Area - Energy, Chemical & Process Engineering. More information soon...
Spatial strategy for the Rhenish mining area
Elaboration of an integrative spatial development strategy for the Rhenish mining area until 2038 and beyond.
DAZWISCHEN: Future-oriented structural change in the ‘Rhineland District‘
The project sees itself as a laboratory for adapting to the structural changes that will come to the mining area when the open-cast mines reach the end of their decarburization.
Network: L'EAU
L'EAU is a platform for innovative and international spatial cooperation, in one of the most important cross-border regions in Europe.
Research Project ZL'EU: Spatial Strategy Zuid-Limburg in Euregional Context
With the integrated view, spatial visions and strategies for a spatial development program are created.