The Chair for Urban Design and Urbanization is focused on socially just and climate conscious urban design for people, plants, animals, fungi and crystals. CUD research and design projects explore the complex history, actual use, ecology and economy of the urban and contemporary modes of urban governance. Cooperative and community-based design processes are investigated, developed and tested in teaching, research and practice.
Cities and regions today are undergoing far-reaching changes conditioned by climate change, socio-cultural and demographic changes as well as new economic and technological developments. In the light of this and with interest in spatial qualities and people, the department Urban Design und Urban Developement of Prof. Dr. Angela Million is committed to integrated scholarship in the following themes: educational space, built environment education and participatory urban design, future cities, multifunctional infrastructure development and scholarship of teaching and learning in urban design, visual communication and cartography.
We understand communication as a multidirectional dialogue – i.e. re-negotiation of our understandings of the urban and its spaces. A two-footed practice, pivoting on PRODUCTION & PRESENTATION of content and media (i.e. the organization and visualization of information); as well as INTERACTION of stakeholders and EXCHANGE of information for the purpose of constructive deliberation. Hence, methods, tools, strategies, skills and tactics to help navigating contemporary complexities and the messiness of our urban everydays play a central role K LAB’s work.
The changing meaning of landscape and open space in the times of widespread urban expansion has brought new challenges for planning and design. Combining theoretical debates and conceptual design work the Chair of Landscape Architecture and Open Space Planning is looking for new connections between the urban and natural systems. Following a multiscalar approach the chair considers the interelation of urban and landscape development in its multiple spatial, material, social, historical and cultural dimensions.
We analyse the structures of deliberately designed spaces and their consequences for social action; and how this relates to the informal development of urban spaces. The aim is to understand urban spaces in light of urban planning decision-making, socio-aesthetic design interventions, the intrinsic logic of cities, and the social appropriations of spaces.
The Habitat Unit is a globally networked research and teaching centre developing new approaches, expertise and application-oriented tools relevant for global urbanisation and urban change processes. The Habitat Unit is committed to an inclusive and rights based approach to urban policy, urban management as well as development-oriented and actor-driven planning.
