Within a context of economic anxieties, environmental concerns on the future, demographic pressures and political unpredictability spatial planning increasingly find itself positioned in the role of speculating scenarios that would map the impacts of these unpredictable drivers in the future cities.

Yet while scenario making is a key method to understand the implications on space of such uncertain futures it certainly lacks a critical position regarding the role cities can do not only to prepare for the difficult moments but also to value the role of existing resources that could be activated in the case of such unwanted events. Cities should be interested beyond surviving targets; they should be able to confront the uncertain futures with the help and support of their own devices. After a degree of pressure they should be able to resist it, and to a great extent they should be able to return to their original state.

Resilience as a concept to explore the qualities and characteristics of cities that make them more robust to resist unexpected events becomes a useful term, an exemplary concept that planners could use to test their the capacities of cities and buildings to absorb dramatic change without losing their essential elements and identity, something that is close to resilience original meaning: adjective (of a substance or object) able to recoil or spring back into shape after bending, stretching, or being compressed. The exercise works therefore on thinking and exploring the meaning of resilience in architecture and urban planning.

The workshop will test its different application on the region of Branderburg. The planning authorities have drafted strategies that point out areas of interest and have decided to improve them as a mechanism to make them attractive for citizens and investors alike. This is done following the slogan ‘strengthening strengths’. Yet the region is already under stress from several vectors: demography, economy, and environment. It therefore offers challenging cases to speculate on its future.

Tutors

Prof. Winy Maas, Felix Madrazo, Alexander Sverdlov, Giovanni Bellotti

Students

Afke Laarakker, Trine Bolviken, Maciej Wieczorkowski, Bram Groeneveld, Liao Chi-Yi, Jia Chen, Chung Heng Kwong, Hiu Sze Yip, Joshua Harrex, Lila Athanasiadou, Paulina Czynczyk, Linda de Geus, Mark van den Ouden, Danil Chekushkin (TU Berlin)

Guest Critics

Matthias Böttger (raumtaktik, German Architecture Centre), Tobias Schmidt (researcher IRS Leibniz Institute for Regional Development and Structural Programmes)

Collaborators

Henk Ovink, Ministry of Infrastructure and the environment, AEDES

Related

project

• Resilience