City of Bits

An expedition into what makes a city

Our cities are complex systems interconnecting social, economic, and infrastructural elements. Within these systems, we build our own networks around us and make individual choices to make the city work for us. We depend on the existence of the different systems for all the services we cannot originally provide, yet the essence of what makes our cities the productive engines and creative hubs of nations, lies in our social interactions: how we live, work, and create together. The platform that enables the mutual benefit between urban system and social interactions is space. Urban space effects our urban behaviour.

So, what qualities do urban spaces need to offer to make cities pleasant places to live in? Spatial conditions that allow our own networks and social interaction to function while protecting us from challenges that could stop us from being productive. 

„City of Bits“ will be a journey to the small networks of human interaction, the bits within the urban pattern, that ultimately influence the success of a city through the perspective of scale. The dimension, design, materiality, and character of urban architectures influence the scale of our productive human activties. The seminar will perform this journey in local expeditions to diverse urban spatial typologies of multiple scale and use, to observe the quality and quantity of human interaction along the level of porosity of urban architecture between public space and private realm.

In our rapidly urbanizing world, the seminar will then turn to a broader global lens, connecting the local observations with urban examples worldwide, comparing and debating the challenges of urban density also amid the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The discussion aims to offer new perspectives on what ultimately matters towards a more sustainable transformation of our cities: the scale of human interaction.

Übung mit Abschlussgespräch. Anwesenheitspflicht 80%.

Zweiwöchentliches Blockseminar, Vortrag und Stadtexkursionen. 

Di. 13.10.20 - (2 SemStd): 10:00-11:30 Uhr  | Seminarraum 08

Di. 20.10.20 - (4 SemStd): 10:00-13:00 Uhr  | Seminarraum 21

Di. 10.11.20: 10:00-10:30 Uhr  | Distance Learning (Organisatorisches Treffen)

Di. 17.11.20 - (4 SemStd): 10:00-13:00 Uhr | Distance  Learning

Di. 01.12.20 - (4 SemStd): 10:00-13:00 Uhr | Distance Learning

Di. 15.12.20 - (4 SemStd): 10:00-13:00 Uhr | Distance Learning

Di. 19.01.21 - (4 SemStd): 10:00-13:00 Uhr | Abhängig von Betriebsszenario (Seminarraum 08)

Di. 04.02.21 - (4 SemStd): 10:00-13:00 Uhr | Abhängig von Betriebsszenario (Seminarraum 08)