"StadtManufaktur Berlin" Exhibition

©visitBerlin/Sarah Lindemann

14.07.2020
The "StadtManufaktur Berlin" Exhibition: experiments to create a city worth living in

Brain City Berlin

Real-world Laboratories are bringing scientists together with practitioners to develop solutions to the questions of tomorrow in an experimental environment. The Real-World laboratory center “StadtManufaktur Berlin” has now officially launched with a digital exhibition. The transdisciplinary initiative was launched by Technische Universität Berlin (TU Berlin) together with ZTG (“Center for Technology and Society”) and the Einstein Center Digital Future.

Can mushrooms really be used as building material? Can you run a roof farm with wastewater? Or: How will Berliners travel around the city in the future? The StadtManufaktur Berlin Real-World Laboratory center was set up to address questions like these. As part of the transdisciplinary initiative, scientists and other leaders in Brain City Berlin are working together to solve the complex urban challenges that a metropolis like Berlin faces by combining science and practice. The initiative was started by Technische Universität Berlin (TU Berlin) together with ZTG (“Center for Technology and Society”) and the Einstein Center Digital Future in October 2019.

The StadtManufaktur Berlin Concept

©StadtManufaktur Berlin

To mark its official opening, StadtManufaktur Berlin has launched a virtual exhibition. Using an interactive Berlin map, visitors can explore TU Berlin's current projects in a single context; the projects are assigned to four categories: Climate resilience, energy transition, circular economy, and transformation knowledge. The projects, each of which takes a very different approach, give a first impression of what topics science and city dwellers can collaborate on in Berlin and how that research might be conducted. Using the Neu-Hohenschönhausen pilot project as an example, the digital exhibition also gives initial insight into scenarios, discourses, and tools for urban transformation.

The initiators of the Real-World Laboratory center understand the city of Berlin as a “laboratory situation” that is lived and experienced everyday: "We want to act as a catalyst and further develop the transfer of research and development needs and results; our aim is to create a city worth living in and develop transformative science," the exhibition website says. At the same time, they are concerned with starting a long-term discourse between the TU Berlin and the city of Berlin and creating “matches” between scientists and partners from politics, business, culture, and civic society. The launch phase of StadtManufaktur Berlin has been supported by the Berlin Senate Chancellery. And everyone is expressly encouraged to join in! (vdo)