future.lab

The future.lab is a platform in the Faculty of Architecture and Planning for experimental and inter-/transdisciplinary research and studies in urban and regional development. Moreover, it works to create opportunities and to support projects that stimulate research, studies, and professional practice specifically as open knowledge-sharing, thus reinforcing our image and profile. Planned for a limited period, the platform challenges teachers, students and colleagues from the professional planning industry to develop realistic projects and ideas and to transpose the aspirations of a transdisciplinary scientific praxis into concrete action.

The future.lab sees itself as an open format! Its life blood is the broad-based cooperation and collective creative ideas of as many colleagues as possible from research, academic studies and praxis. The sole condition is the creative approach to achieving the fundamental aspirations of inter-/transdisciplinary studies, likewise the experimental, application-oriented character of the projects.

Networking and pooling of contents

The platform is based on the fields of research and funding priorities of the TU Wien and the Faculty of Architecture and Planning. Hence the project supports the discussion pertaining to regional planning and developmental concepts, strategies and projects from the fields of architecture, urban design, planning, urban management and urban governance. Not least, it is also involved in fostering the dialogue between the planning-related sciences and professional practice.

Experimental and interdisciplinary formats in academic studies and research

The development of the urban environment always depends on the achievements of various partners, institutions, disciplines. This also affects how we deal with the complex tasks, actions and research areas of an urban development related to architecture and planning. This very aspect in particular requires a culture of cross-thinking, of networking and learning with and for one another. It is from here that the future.lab launches out. It is founded on its inter-/transdisciplinary aspirations and also on the open format, in which competences of method and of those relating to society and the individual are required and supported in tackling regional planning and architecture. Topics of regional development will become visible and thus open to discussion via the future.lab projects. So the future.lab has the goal of enriching and intensifying the social discourse on the future of the urban environment and the perspectives of urban life.

In brief, the future.lab of the Faculty of Architecture and Planning stands for:

• Key topics in academic studies and research
  Focusing on key topics relating particularly to academic studies and research in the cross-linkage of architecture and planning
• Scholarships
  Awarding of scholarships to students (diploma/degree/doctorate) who apply themselves to the thematic and methods of the respective key topic
• Guest professors
  Financing of guest professorships for the respective annual topics
• Lecture series
  Organisation of public lecture series on future issues pertaining to the urban environment and society
• Teaching programmes and research projects 
  Organisation and support of teaching programmes and research projects
• Networking of participants and players
  Networking of different players from research, science and praxis
• Temporary work spaces
  Renting of temporary work spaces for project and research groups 
• Communication
  Pooling and specifying communication of the projects and achievements in research and academic studies.