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Cities are the centres of creativity, diversity, and science; they fulfil citizens’ need for connectivity by offering density and spontaneity. In times of lockdown and isolation, we have come to value community and social interaction. Never has the abundance of possibilities for change been so evident as in this pandemic era. Urban living in this sense is a luxury. It offers opportunities in all spatial dimensions and scales, and it presents public space as a common good. Cities are home to people who can maximize these possibilities in new and unique ways, and who seek to engage with each other. How can we conceptualize and restructure public space to create the cities of the future, cities that we want to live in? What concepts should we consider in order to make our cities sustainable and resilient – and at the same time develop new ways for communities to strengthen public life in society? Which designs foster cohesion and dynamic interaction, and how can cities spark this organically? And most crucially: If all these elements have been entrusted to cities, how do we ensure they are maintained, protected, and adapted for the needs of future generations?

Spreepark is a public luxury in hibernation, waiting to be re-activated and become a generous and attractive place for city dwellers. There’s no better place to discuss what future urban luxuries must entail to serve the people best.

San Gimignano Lichtenberg is an ongoing architectural project initiated and developed by a group of architects, TV producers, gardeners, carpenters, artists, journalists and many more. It is developed from an industrial wasteland and located between hypermarkets and logistics centers. It is a visual manifestation of the consequences of current developments in urban economies.

The pandemic has shown us how swiftly local and global economies could shift potentially. Complete industries thrived, have been disrupted or completely re-structured. The time of quarantine marked a moment of standstill: The urgency of the pandemic made fundamental and structural change inevitable. The pandemic thereby proved the idea of Alternativlosigkeit wrong. Human paradigm and cultural values are not a given, but inscribed in the social, economic and legal frameworks that structure our everyday lives. How can we find and implement new policies for a common and better future of global metropolises?

How can we mobilize the law—too often producing processes of injustice and economic subordination at the service of companies and neoliberal forces—to act spatially and counter speculative construction, gentrification, social and spatial segregation, resource depletion, and technological escalation? Is a moratorium the right legal tool to bring spatial matters and resources to public debate? More generally, how to harness policy as a space regulator, bearing in mind its powers and limitations?

Many companies and political institutions tend to view mobility as a means to an end, when in reality it is the driving force of human existence: it determines where we
can or cannot go, with whom we travel and what our journey looks like. It is the nexus of all social needs and is at the heart of the most important innovations of our time.
Disrupted Mobilities interrogates agents of change about potential developments, in which they themselves play an important role. It investigates the great dilemmas of mobility: human vs. machine, fossil vs. post-fossil, ownership vs. utilisation, horizontal vs. vertical. Is this just the beginning of a truly mobile society?

With its distinctive octagonal shape and rich history, enabling the Berlin Airlift for example, the airport BERLIN TEGEL is a landmark of the city. After serving as Berlin’s main connection to the world since the 1970s, the airport closed in 2020 and is currently at the centre of a public debate to redefine its role.

CIVIL RESPONSIBILITY at the Haus der Statistik concerns the cooperation between politics, administration and civil society that is to be tested continuously, as well as the question of the watchdog function that civil society can (and must) assume for a city that is affordable and oriented towards the common good in the long term. What is being prototypically tested at the House of Statistics on a small and large scale concerns not only the Berlin context but also an overarching national, European and international context. The international public-civil partnership debate gives rise to several sub-topics that need to be considered in context, but also in focus: these include the question of a fair market economy in relation to land and property, as well as the legal framework conditions that make it possible to use tools such as heritable building rights or land funds/CLT models, and cooperative urban and neighbourhood development that promotes cooperation between the administration and civil society actors in the sense of a city that is oriented towards the common good and sustainable.

Since the start of the project in 2015 by the Haus der Statistik initiative, the Haus der Statistik model project has stood for civil society engagement and novel forms of cooperative collaboration. Since 2018, the five cooperation partners – SenSW, Bezirk Mitte, WBM Wohnungsbaugesellschaft Berlin-Mitte, BIM Berliner Immobilienmanagement and ZUsammenKUNFT Berlin eG – have been developing the Haus der Statistik site in joint responsibility and at eye level. In 2018, the integrated workshop process laid the foundation for the procedural and cooperative neighbourhood development that will accompany the project in the coming years across all neighbourhood components – from the pioneering uses, to the renovation of existing buildings and new construction, to the shared open spaces, as well as fundamental questions about awarding and organisational models for the future users.

Spectacularly staged as a temporary platform for exchange and teaching in a former rainwater retention basin, the Floating University has been addressing the pressing issues of our urbanized present for several years.