TRANSFORMERS

TRANSFORMERS is a DAAD higher education dialogue between Germany and Italy about the role and agency of cities to reach climate neutrality, combining this change with social and economic progress. The project focuses on the interrelation and dynamics between urban fabric and society, and establishes a joint search for new transformative knowledge, for cities as laboratories of openness, innovation, and entrepreneurship.

asks for new knowledge and models of design-thinking and co-design for a circular paradigm on an urban level and for urban regeneration, using bio-innovation in terms of bio-regional systems, linked to the green transition of the larger design and construction sector.

asks for new knowledge and models for community activation, engagement, and participation linked to urban transition processes and a sustainable turn in architecture, and targets in particular attractiveness for young people, integration of new inhabitants, and social entrepreneurship in green and digital business models.

asks for new knowledge and models to redesign, renovate, and reactivate public buildings, housing, and public space, to realise energy-efficiency in particular in historic centres, and to answer to social inclusiveness, accessibility, new digitally driven models of life and work, and a new aesthetic of shared common spaces.

hannover, lower saxony, germany

sambuca + palermo, sicilia, italy

jesi + ancona, marche, italy

The project TRANSFORMERS is built on the expertise from three universities:

  • the Territorial Design and Urban Planning group from Leibniz University Hannover

  • the Urban and Territorial Planning group from Università degli Studi di Palermo

  • and the Architectural and Urban Design group from Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona