The transdisciplinary research project "Open Planning Cultures. Design Principles for Transformative Spaces (OPEN_CULTURES)" deals with the relationship between climate knowledge, urban design and sustainable living from a transdisciplinary perspective. Led by the Technical University of Braunschweig , the project also brings together researchers from the WiZeGG at the University of Oldenburg and the Julis Kühn Institute with practitioners from local urban society. OPEN_CULTURES ties in with the Co_Living Campus urban development project of the TU Braunschweig and the city of Braunschweig, in which a former barracks site in the north of Braunschweig is to be transformed into a sustainable and multifunctional campus area.

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The project is made up of three interdisciplinary sub-labs that deal with the different dimensions of climate-sensitive urban design:

Sub-Lab 1: OPEN_Planning - examines the role of social participation in the development and implementation of climate-sensitive forms of urban design.
Sub-Lab 2: OPEN_Factory - analyses how the design of buildings can support climate-sensitive lifestyles. The material dimension of sustainable urban development is combined here with innovative construction and utilisation concepts.
Sub-Lab 3: OPEN_Imaginaries - is dedicated to the cultural dimension of climate change. It examines how ideas about climate change influence everyday practices and how climate knowledge is produced in transdisciplinary collaboration.

The Scientific Centre Genealogy of the Present (WiZeGG) adopts a specific social and cultural science perspective within Sub-Lab 3 of the project. On the one hand, it researches how popular narratives and discourses on climate change influence everyday practices and are mutually reproduced in them. On the other hand, the WiZeGG is involved in the scientific monitoring of the research project itself. We are investigating the trans- and interdisciplinary co-production of climate knowledge within the concrete cooperation of the project participants. Based on a practice-theoretical approach, ethnographic, visual and discourse-analytical methods will be used as part of this research.

By integrating the findings of the three sub-labs, OPEN_CULTURES aims to develop design principles that are not only theoretically sound but also practically applicable - in Germany and beyond. OPEN_CULTURES is one of four Climate Future Labs at the Centre for Climate Research Lower Saxony and is funded with up to five million euros from the zukunft.niedersachsen programme of the Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture and the Volkswagen Foundation . The funding period is six years, subject to a positive interim evaluation.

You can find the homepage of the project here.