Climate-friendly development of urban and rural areas TU Braunschweig heads two new Climate Future Labs

How does climate change affect the city and its people? What adaptations are necessary? And how can cities be developed in a climate-friendly way with the participation of citizens? This is what scientists at Technische Universität Braunschweig will be investigating in two new future labs at the Centre for Climate Research Niedersachsen. The so-called “Climate Future Labs” are being funded by the zukunft.niedersachsen programme of the Niedersachsen Ministry of Science and Culture and the Volkswagen Foundation with up to five million euros each for six years.

How does climate change affect the city and its people? View of the city of Braunschweig. Picture credits: Bianca Loschinsky/TU Braunschweig

“The funding of the two Climate Future Labs for climate-friendly urban development underlines the outstanding role of our university in urban research in the context of climate change,” says TU Braunschweig President Angela Ittel. “The two future labs enable our scientists to develop innovative solutions for the pressing challenges of climate change in collaboration with other universities in Niedersachsen and non-university partners, and to strengthen our commitment to a sustainable future.”

Urban Climate Future Lab for Niedersachsen and beyond

Heat, heavy rain, floods, droughts: climate change has far-reaching effects on cities and the many people who live there. The aim of the Urban Climate Future Lab (UCFL), led by Professor Vanessa Carlow of the Institute for Sustainable Urban Development at TU Braunschweig, is to explore the complex interactions between climate change, climate change adaptation and urbanisation. Scientists from TU Braunschweig, Leibniz University Hannover, Leuphana University Lüneburg, the Academy for Spatial Development in the Leibniz Association and the Climate Service Centre Germany will work together on the project. The disciplines involved include architecture, urban development and planning, landscape architecture, engineering, psychology, governance, environmental sciences, geography, physics and climate sciences. In order to carry out research not only in theory but also in practice, the Urban Climate Future Lab is planning strategic partnerships with cities, municipalities, industry and civil society.

In the first phase, the UCFL will analyse how different types of settlements in Niedersachsen contribute to climate change and how they are affected by it. This is because it is still unclear how exactly the different types of settlements – for example, large, medium-sized or small towns, villages, industrial areas or urban neighbourhoods – contribute to climate change, how they are affected by it and what risks or potentials exist with regard to adapting to climate change. The second phase of the project will focus on transformation options: how can the settlement system and places in Niedersachsen be reorganised to reduce the impacts of climate change and increase overall resilience and sustainability? Although Niedersachsen is the focus of the project, the research team aims to develop strategies and models that can be applied to urban regions worldwide.

“Cities and urban regions are particularly affected by climate change – also in Niedersachsen. As spokesperson for the multidisciplinary research network ‘Urban Climate Future Lab’, I am looking forward to working with the UCFL team and many other partners from cities and municipalities in the coming years to develop scientifically sound development paths for the sustainable transformation of Niedersachsen,” says Professor Vanessa Carlow, Director of the Institute for Sustainable Urban Development and spokesperson for the new UCFL Future Lab. “We want to develop innovative planning, mobility, production and energy systems for the transition to a sustainable and resilient future in urban and rural areas. This includes new formats for citizen participation, new governance approaches, a new understanding of how to deal with climate risks, and new physical models based on the specific characteristics of the urban system with its different types of settlements and landscapes and the reality of people’s lives.”

Climate knowledge and urban design

As a further Climate Future Lab on the topic of climate-friendly urban development, the project “Open Planning Cultures. Design Principles for Transformative Spaces (OPEN_CULTURES)”, led by Professor Tatjana Schneider, Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture and the City at TU Braunschweig, and involving researchers from TU Braunschweig, the Julius Kühn Institute and the University of Oldenburg. OPEN_CULTURES is linked to the joint urban development project Co_Living Campus of TU Braunschweig and the city of Braunschweig. The aim is to investigate how climate knowledge can be translated into sustainable living through design principles that directly support climate adaptation in urban development and spatial planning. To close this “translation gap”, OPEN_CULTURES will unravel the complex relationship between climate knowledge and the practice of urban design and sustainable living in three sub-labs.

For example, researchers will look at the role of participation in creating climate-smart forms of urban design. The second sub-lab will look at how building design can support climate-sensitive forms of urban living. The third sub-lab examines how ideas about climate change influence and are reproduced in everyday practices, and how climate change could be narrated differently to motivate sustainable living practices. The interdisciplinary research consortium takes a participatory and transdisciplinary approach that examines buildings and green infrastructure together with social and symbolic dimensions, focusing on just, equitable and inclusive forms of climate adaptation through the development of design principles.

“The Future Lab is a fantastic opportunity to take an interdisciplinary approach to the issues of climate-friendly urban design that are so important for our society and environment,” says Professor Tatjana Schneider, Head of the Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture and the City at TU Braunschweig and spokesperson for the project. “What is special about our approach is the cooperation between the humanities and social sciences with design and technical disciplines. The project is also supported by a broad alliance of civil society organisations, community associations and other organisations working for sustainable neighbourhoods. We are delighted to be launching this project together.”

Resilient forests

In addition to the project management of the two Future Labs on “Climate-friendly urban development and spatial planning”, TU Braunschweig is also involved in a lab on “Effects of climate change on the forest ecosystem” with Dr Matthias Beyer (Junior Research Group Leader “Isodrones”) and Professor Harald Biester (Environmental Geochemistry) from the Institute of Geoecology. . The “FoResLab”, led by the University of Göttingen, is investigating how forests can be made more resilient to climate change. To do this, scientists will combine interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research with science communication and knowledge transfer formats.

Project details

A total of 14 projects were submitted for the four Climate Future Labs at the Centre for Climate Research Niedersachsen. They will each receive up to five million euros in funding from the zukunft.niedersachsen programme of the Niedersachsen Ministry of Science and Culture and the Volkswagen Foundation. The funding period is six years, subject to a positive interim evaluation.

UCFL – Urban Climate Future Lab

The UCFL is a multidisciplinary team of scientists from Technische Universität Braunschweig, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, the Academy for Spatial Development of the Leibniz Association and the Climate Service Centre Germany. This expertise is complemented by an advisory board of nationally and internationally renowned experts who want to contribute to the global resonance of the approaches and methods. The Lab’s spokesperson is Professor Vanessa Miriam Carlow, Director of the Institute for Sustainable Urban Development and spokesperson for the City of the Future research programme at TU Braunschweig. Co-speakers are Professor Astrid Kause (Leuphana University) and Professor Martin Prominski (Leibniz University Hannover).

OPEN_CULTURES

In addition to scientists from various disciplines at TU Braunschweig, researchers from the Julius Kühn Institute and the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg are involved in the future laboratory “Open Planning Cultures. Design Principles for Transformative Spaces (OPEN_CULTURES)”. The spokesperson for the project is Professor Tatjana Schneider from the Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture and the City at TU Braunschweig. Co-spokespersons are Professor Martin Butler from the University of Oldenburg and Dr. Mona Quambusch from the Julius Kühn Institute. OPEN_CULTURES will network research actors in Niedersachsen and beyond. To this end, the project team is working with an international inter- and transdisciplinary network that brings together academic institutions, various practice partners and civil society actors.