Multi-stage participation process to accompany and prepare planning for innovative urban quarter TU Braunschweig and City of Braunschweig sign cooperation agreement on CoLiving Campus

Joint press release of the City of Braunschweig and Technische Universität Braunschweig

The extensive public participation process for the CoLiving Campus project now begins with the “CO_NFERENZ” from 15 to 30 June. Over the next few years, a model science quarter is to be created on the North Campus, bringing together science and urban society in an urban space and inviting active participation. Education and research, living and working, nature, culture and supply are to be combined in a mixed urban quarter in the Nordstadt. Innovative ideas from science for living, working and housing in the future will be tested under “real-world laboratory conditions”.

Mayor Dr Thorsten Kornblum and TU President Angela Ittel jointly sign a cooperation agreement on the CoLiving Campus. Photo credit: City of Braunschweig / Daniela Nielsen

The project partners are Technische Universität Braunschweig and the City of Braunschweig. They are hoping for a boost in innovation for Braunschweig as a city of science and for the research region of Lower Saxony. The state of Lower Saxony supports the project.

The participation process, which is to accompany and complement the planning, will take place in several stages until 2024. In a first step, citizens, members of the TU, initiatives, associations and local organisations will be able to inform themselves about the cooperative project and engage in discussion at the “CO_NFERENZ”. The TU and the city have already advertised the format and received a large number of registrations from interested parties who will be there from 15 to 30 June. Some dates are already fully booked. The participation will take place in the campus garage, formerly used as a tank hall, on TU Braunschweig’s North Campus on Bienroder Weg. The CoLiving Campus is to be built on this site and on the city’s neighbouring sports grounds to the east of Beethovenstraße.

Making science more transparent, accessible and visible

TU President Prof. Angela Ittel and Mayor Dr Thorsten Kornblum promoted the CoLiving Campus project and the participation process at the signing of a cooperation agreement as the basis for joint planning and participation activities.

“The CoLiving Campus is a great opportunity for the university to grow closer together with the city and the community,” said Prof. Ittel. “We want to make science more transparent, accessible and visible. That’s why we are happy to work with the city on the CoLiving Campus to create a special place where science and community come together.”

Dr Thorsten Kornblum, Mayor of the City of Braunschweig: “With the model project, we not only want to shape the science quarter itself, but also the path to it cooperatively from the very beginning, that is, even before there are concrete plans and projects. Together with the TU, we offer new, experimental participation and planning formats and invite people to think and participate. The concept of an experimental science quarter offers a sea of opportunities to innovatively shape the coexistence of different living and working areas and to be there when ideas for the future are tried out in the open air in a laboratory, so to speak.”

Expert input and ideas week

On 15 June, the kick-off, the city and TU project group will present the CoLiving Campus project and the planned participation and planning process. On 16 June, inspiration from all over Germany will come to Braunschweig in the form of expert inputs: experts from research and practice will share their knowledge and project experiences on the topics of CO, LIVING, CAMPUS, NATURE in the form of keynote speeches and a panel discussion.

From 19 to 23 June, the Ideas Week will then offer opportunities for exchange and invites people to join in the thinking at an open participatory workshop. Guided tours of the grounds will also be offered for interested visitors. The aim of the tours is to show interesting places on the site and to make current uses more visible.

The conclusion of the CO_NFERENZ on 30 June is also the outlook for the further participation and planning process: the suggestions from the expert impulses and the ideas week will be summarised, discussed and incorporated into the next project steps. The CO_NFERENZ itself will conclude with a presentation of the results, a discussion, and a statement by the TU President and the Mayor.

Co_Wettbewerb as an experimental planning format

In October 2023, the second major component of participation will be the CO_WORKSHOP, a format for detailed discussion of the project. In this one-week workshop format, experts, citizens and university stakeholders will exchange ideas and develop recommendations for the development of the quarter.

The CO_WETTBEWERB in March 2024 is an experimental planning format at the interface between participation and urban planning competition. In the CO_WETTBEWERB, invited offices with expertise in the field of urban planning and cooperative quarter development will work with students from TU Braunschweig on site in a multi-day workshop procedure. The development of the designs is accompanied by public discussion formats. This makes the work process and the interim results transparent and accessible to the public at an early stage. After a non-public jury session, one or more competition designs will be selected and recommended for further work.

The summary of the results of the CO_NFERENZ, the CO_WORKSHOP and the CO_WETTBEWERB will be published in a documentation and serve as the basis for the urban development framework plan. Finally, the political committees of the city will decide on the framework plan.

Science Quarter at the North Campus

With the CoLiving Campus, a science quarter is to be created at the North Campus that brings together science and urban community in an urban space and invites active participation. The aim of this framework project, which is laid down in the Integriertes Stadtentwicklungskonzept (ISEK) (Integrated Urban Development Concept), is to combine education and research, living and working, nature, culture and supply in a mixed urban quarter in the Nordstadt. To this end, in a cooperation between the City of Braunschweig and Technische Universität Braunschweig, the TU’s North Campus on Bienroder Weg and the city’s neighbouring sports grounds east of Beethovenstraße are to be developed into a model quarter.