Design Studio WiSe 2023/24
Dr. Oliver Lah, Dr. Jakub Galuszka, Prof. Anke Hagemann

Designing Participatory Living Labs
Co-developing Mobility and Energy Solutions for Urban and Rural Contexts

The transformation of cities towards sustainable and inclusive development is a key objective of global agendas such as the SDGs or the New Urban Agenda. There is substantial potential to improve urban access, air quality, safety and the quality of life in cities along with reducing greenhouse gas emissions if an integrated policy and planning approach is applied.

Photo: © UN HABITAT

This studio supports this process through a perspective on transformative living labs focusing on improving urban mobility solutions, connectivity and fostering local innovation to contribute to sustainable urban development. The design studio will be implemented in collaboration with the Urban Living Lab Center (ULLC), which is a Collaborating Center of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat). It is co-hosted by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Technische Universität Berlin (TUB), the Wuppertal Institute, and regional partner universities and network partners.
 
In cooperation with the local municipalities and universities, we address key urban challenges by embedding new sustainable mobility and energy solutions into urban and rural settings. This work will incorporate local solutions in partner cities in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The design concepts will draw from learnings of a Living Lab in Kenya and test the replica-bility in different contexts. This studio will be guided by international partners and linked to study groups of other partner universities in the ULLC context.

Download poster here.