Please join us on 22 May 2025 from 14h to 19h for the symposium and exhibition ‘Transdisciplinary research in urban environments’.
Transdisciplinarity – defined as collaboration between diverse stakeholders from civil society, academia, and the public and private sectors – is a central element of current urban research and development practice. What are the challenges and opportunities of transdisciplinarity in research and practice? How can we, as architects and urban planners, contribute to meeting these challenges and seizing opportunities? And how can we prepare a new generation of architects and planners to engage effectively with transdisciplinarity and support transformation towards quality of life and well-being?
These questions guided the „Transdisciplinary Research in Urban Environments (TRUE) Talents“ project, organized by the Department of International Urbanism and Design and funded by the School for Talents at the University of Stuttgart, which is supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) as part of the Excellence Strategy of the German federal and state governments. TRUE Talents introduced students to conduct research in the context of the EU project ‘WiSER – Well-being in a Sustainable Economy Revisited’. In October 2024 they took part in data collection on the importance of co-production in informal settlements in Cape Town in collaboration with the Violence Prevention through Urban Upgrading programme (VPUU).
The results of TRUE Talents are now presented in an exhibition showcasing selected student works created during the winter semester of 2024/25. These works were part of the „Community-Based Co-Production – Cape Town Studio“ and the seminar „Learning from Cape Town – Investigating Co-Production and Well-Being in an Informal Settlement Community.“ The exhibition is complemented by a symposium to provide impetus on the topic and reflect the outcome of the students‘ work with international guest speakers. Invited speakers and panelists:
- Julia Föllmer, UNIVERSITY of TWENTE, NL
- Javier Martinez, UNIVERSITY of TWENTE, NL
- Reza Shirazi, OXFORD BROOKES UNIVERSITY, UK
- Gilbert Siame, UNIVERSITY of ZAMBIA (t.b.c.)
