Book Launch: Urban Design Lab Handbook

Between 2013 and 2018, the Institute of Urban Design and Landscape Architecture (Städtebau Entwerfen) of the TU-Wien partnered with the Housing and Urban Development Division (HUD) of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to create a scientific foundation for innovative methods that foster participatory planning and design. An experimental design approach was applied, combining people- centered planning, participatory planning tools, urban strategies, and urban design. The Urban Design Lab (UDL) worked in over twenty emerging cities in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC).

The “Urban Design Lab Handbook” displays the result of a five years planning process: not only 21 projects all over the American continent were developed, but also a solid planning methodology was elaborated. The handbook explains the context and emerging problems faced by the cities of Latin America and the Caribbean and puts forward various solutions for typical difficulties encountered within those urban conglomerations.

Latin America and the Caribbean constitutes the second most urbanized region on the planet and LAC cities are growing exponentially. In order to face the resulting challenges, long-term strategies need to be developed, dealing with urban phenomena such as: rapid population growth, informal settlements, the revival and regeneration of centrally located—but neglected—spaces, as well as with urban management and governance issues similar to those found in other expanding agglomerations. These strategies need to address major questions: How can one plan a growing city without neglecting urbanity? How can one manage urban spatial growth in tandem with social, environmental, cultural and economic challenges?

The “Urban Design Lab Handbook” was edited by Roland Krebs and Markus Tomaselli and published by JOVIS Verlag Berlin in 2019: https://www.jovis.de/en/books/product/urban-design-lab-handbook.html

Program

17:00 Opening and Introduction
Harald Waiglein, Director General for Economic Policy and Financial Markets, Federal Ministry of Finance (BMF)
Rudolf Scheuvens, Dean of Faculty of Architecture and Planning, TU Wien

17:15 Research by Design and Experimental Approaches of the Urban Labs
An Introduction to the Urban Design Lab Handbook, Roland Krebs, superwien urbanism ZT OG, Vienna

17:30 The Urban Labs from the perspective of the academia
Markus Tomaselli, Head of Institute of Urban Design and Landscape, Institute for Urban Design and Landscape Architecture, TU Wien

17:45 The Urban Labs from the perspective of the IDB
Esther Rodriguez Fernandez, Inter-American Development Bank, Washington, DC

18:00 Keynote: urbanisation by architecture
Hubert Klumpner, Chair of Architecture and Urban Design, ETH Zürich and Founding partner of Urban-Think-Tank.

18:30–19:00 Urbanists as Activists—How to light the fire for activism?
Joint panel discussion with the speakers from the previous session and Kerstin Pluch (Research Unit for Local Planning and Design, TU Wien), Jan Gartner (Director Raumpioniere), Vienna and Isabel Stumfol (Institute for Spatial Planning, TU Wien and board member of Landluft), moderation n.n.

After the presentations Wine and Bread will be served.