URA – Urban-Rural Assembly: Strategic tools for integrated territorial planning enhancing urban-rural integration and circular economies in the Huangyan-Taizhou region
Sustainable urban-rural systems are the basic elements of a regenerative economic and social model. Based on an inter- and transdisciplinary R&D approach implemented in Living Labs in China and Germany, URA is developing strategic planning, governance and community tools that promote integrated urban-rural development.
URA develops strategic planning, governance and community tools with the aim of strengthening an integrated and socio-ecologically sustainable transformation of urban regions. Therefore, a change of perspective is undertaken: urban and rural areas are no longer seen as isolated socio-spatial entities, but as an integrated whole. To this end, the project pursues an interdisciplinary research approach combining quantitative and qualitative methods to achieve a more holistic and cross-sectoral examination of complex urban-rural systems. URA builds on a mutually-beneficial learning partnership linking German and Chinese consortium partners from the fields of urban planning and landscape architecture, ecology and environmental protection as well as sociology and circular economy, who pursue a multi-scalar research approach that incorporates trans-local interrelations at the urban-rural interface across local, regional and supra-regional levels.
Based on the ongoing research results, URA aims to foster the trans-disciplinary development of a participatory and actor-oriented guiding strategy that identifies specific transformation scenarios for the study region, and develops socio-ecologically sustainable action paths for selected Urban-Rural Living Labs. Following this, the developed instruments and guiding principles are tested for their transferability, and recorded in the form of policy recommendations and toolkits for integrated approaches to urban-rural planning and governance. URA's R&D activities focus on the rapidly urbanising region of Huangyan-Taizhou in the province of Zhejiang in China, while including comparative and multi-scalar approaches to integrated urban-rural development that have been tested in the framework of the ongoing International Building Exhibition IBA Thuringia in Germany.
Project lead:
Prof. Dr. Philipp Misselwitz
Technische Universität Berlin, Fakultät VI Planen Bauen Umwelt, Institut für Architektur, Fachgebiet Internationaler Urbanismus und Entwerfen (Habitat Unit)
Straße des 17. Juni 152, A 53
10623 Berlin
Tel.: +49 (0)30 314 21908
E-Mail: misselwitz@tu-berlin.de
Project partner:
- Bauhaus Universität Weimar
- Leibniz-Institut für ökologische Raumentwicklung e.V.
- Tongji Universität Shanghai
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