ZukunftGestalten@HM—Future City. Transdisciplinary Approach Combining Higher Education for Sustainable Development and Designing the Future of the City of Munich in an Urban Real Lab Case

Abstract

This contribution describes the innovative course format “ZukunftGestalten@HM—Future City” at the Munich University of Applied Sciences (MUAS), including its unique features from a higher educational perspective for sustainable development (ESD). The features that make this innovative course format challenging and unique compared to other formats are that it provides an excellent example of a transdisciplinary approach in ESD, combining ESD on the one hand and designing the future of the city of Munich in an urban real lab case on the other. Based on these certain characteristics we call “ZukunftGestalten@HM—Future City” as the flagship course within the various ESD formats offered at MUAS. It is an outcome of the BMBF-project “Future proof” (German: Fur die Zukunft gerustet, www.hm.edu/lehre/zukunft/, grant no. 01PL11025), funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (www.bmbf.de/en/). We view transdisciplinarity as a principle of how to approach problems from an academic perspective. It is not a feature of an issue itself, rather a way of how to deal with current challenges or relevant problems resp. according to academic standards. The often applied scientific “closed shop procedure” of problem solving mainly within universities, classrooms, courses, and project groups is overcome. Interested parties outside universities and academia are actively involved. The scope in the summer term 2015 has been to investigate how future cities may look like in general, and how the city of Munich should be developed in terms of sustainability more specifically. This topic reflects the issue of the science year 2015, dedicated to the future of the city (www.wissenschaftsjahr-zukunftsstadt.de) and promoted by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. The development of cities is a critical driver for sustainable development, and hence their efforts to provide sustainability solutions merit greater effort. As a tangible, local, and real life example we further focused to an ongoing urban planning project of the city of Munich, co-operating with the Department of Urban Planning and Building Regulation, Unit “Population, Housing and PERSPECTIVE MUNICH” of the City of Munich. The specific goal and certain motivation for the City of Munich was to get innovative, fresh, and unorthodox approaches and to receive new insights on how to develop the certain field of action (German: Handlungsraum) in the North of Munich: “Zwischen Milbertshofen und Freimann. Wohnen, Arbeiten, Bildung und Sport im Munchner Norden” (Landeshauptstadt Munchen 2013). The experiences made and the insights gained from “ZukunftGestalten@HM—Future City” may fuel public discourse, initiate discussion and promote dialogue. In particular “ZukunftGestalten@HM—Future City” inspires traditional planning procedures of the Department of Urban Planning/Urban Development, City of Munich, and it may have further impact for strategic urban planning and development projects.