This Design Studio is offered in cooperation with ILPÖ
Integrated Research and Design Project II – Stuttgart meets Superblock: Streets as urban living rooms
How can Stuttgart push the transformation towards a socially just, culturally diverse and ecologically responsible city? This year’s challenge for the Integrated Research and Design Studio (IRD) is to develop visions and urban design ideas for a first superblock in Stuttgart-West to be implemented from 2022 onwards. A superblock is an area of multiple city blocks bounded by arterial roads. Within the superblock, the local road network, if any, is designed to serve local needs only.
In this studio, we will build on Barcelona’s superblocks to design a contextualized implementation for Stuttgart West’s Augustenstraße neighbourhood. The Studio thereby builds upon three pillars: Focal areas, focal themes and focal actors, the reference points to formulate projects with an integrated approach. »Integrated« therefore means to think the environment, buildings and social aspects jointly and to articulate holistic visions based on research-driven knowledge and co-creative design modes. The studio will involve a number of local stakeholders including resident’s initiatives and the district council to enable students to participate in real life work experiences. We will look at the environmental, social and infrastructural fabric by focusing on streetscapes, an omnipresent structure of the city. Streetscapes are at the intersection of the built-up infrastructure and the urban natural environment, and can thus enable a variety of outdoor activities in addition to their use for mobility. We will look into a range of topics bound to urban streetscapes, including how to enable social connections, improve streetscapes’ ecological structures and ecosystem services provision, and the possibilities and barriers of regulatory frameworks for the implementation of both temporary and permanent design projects. We will learn from cities with successful implementation of superblock projects, explore the communication strategies necessary for acceptance by the residents, and transform the residents’ needs into realistic superblock designs. The main focus is to develop ideas that help transform Stuttgart-West into an attractive quarter that provides for a healthy community within a sustainable environment.Stuttgart meets Superblock: Streets as urban living rooms
