Series of events Dialogue forum for the exchange on the subject of the city of the future within the framework of the innovation laboratory M4_LAB with numerous visitors.
On 25 November 2019, another event in the "Dialogue Forum Region Stuttgart" series on the subject of "FUTURE CITY: Car-free urban quarters: live, work and yet remain mobile" took place in the assembly hall of the Stuttgart University of Applied Sciences.
Researchers from the i_city project of the HFT Stuttgart together with the M4_LAB innovation laboratory of the HFT Stuttgart in cooperation with the Stuttgart Region Economic Development Corporation invited more than 130 participants from science, industry, politics, city administration and society.
The Stuttgart metropolitan region is internationally known for its automotive industry on the one hand and for its Weissenhofsiedlung, a settlement that sets impulses for urban development on the other. It is therefore not surprising that the topics of "mobility" and "city of the future" are attracting a great deal of interest among the population in Stuttgart and that at the same time there are many open questions in the air that need to be answered.
So what is it that occupies the people in the Stuttgart Region and how can a climate-neutral future be shaped together?
After a short welcome by Prof. Dr. Uta Bronner (Scientific Director M4_LAB, HFT Stuttgart), Holger Haas (Stuttgart Economic Region, Director Location Development I) and Dr. Dirk Pietruschka (Project Director i_city, HFT Stuttgart), the guests could already hear the call for change in the lecture by Dr. Guido Zimmermann (LBBW Research). With strong impulses and critical questions, his keynote speech "Trends of urbanisation and their effects on the design of the city of the future" stimulated reflection and thus prepared the appropriate starting point for the following workshops.
Under the umbrella theme "Car-free(r) neighbourhoods of the future", the HFT researchers offered four specific interactive CITY workshops, of which the participants could choose two on site:
The influence of urban development on mobility behaviour with Prof. Dr.-Ing. Philipp Dechow and Verena Loidl, HFT Stuttgart
New mobility and its impact on traffic with Prof. Dr. Lutz Gaspers, Dr. Torsten Armstroff and Rebecca Heckmann, HFT Stuttgart
Use of data in car-free neighbourhoods with Prof. Dr. Volker Coors and Dr. Janto Skowronek, HFT Stuttgart, and Markus Müller, State Capital Stuttgart, City Surveying Office
Involving citizens in the mobility turnaround with Prof. Dr. Thomas Bäumer, Sarah Lang and Jan Silberer, HFT Stuttgart
The results of the workshops are manifold. The neighbourhood-related chains of paths in everyday urban life must be better recorded in order to realise car-free neighbourhoods and find far more alternatives to the car. The aim must be to know the needs of different target groups and to offer car-free solutions for them. Companies and industry must be given more responsibility to develop new approaches to living / working / mobility. The attractiveness of new forms of mobility (reward systems), the promotion of company mobility management and intelligent ridesharing were also identified as a basis for research projects. The topics stimulated strong discussions in the workshops, which continued at a network buffet long after the official end of the event.
Knowledge transfer to society: The knowledge transfer of the HFT Stuttgart to society will be further expanded within the framework of the Innovative University. The Dialogue Forum Region Stuttgart offers a suitable platform to promote precisely this transfer and exchange of knowledge between experts and interested parties. Responsible for the topic and content of the Dialogue Forum on 25.11.2019 is i_city, a major project on the intelligent city of the HFT Stuttgart, which has been supported by the BMBF since 2017. With the lead project "i_city: Intelligent City", the Stuttgart University of Applied Sciences is pursuing the vision of becoming an active link between two different, highly topical innovation topics in Stuttgart, alongside other innovative research approaches to urban research: On the occasion of the International Building Exhibition IBA 2027, it wants to research innovative mobility concepts for the Stuttgart metropolitan region and stimulate their implementation. Specifically, i_city is facing the challenge in this specific topic area of designing car-free urban quarters and yet still ensuring the mobility needs within the quarter and out of the quarter. In the dialogue forum, this topic was prepared in an interdisciplinary and cooperative manner with the stakeholders from the Stuttgart region in order to make it a real experience for society in the next step.
