The Reality Lab “CITY-SPACE-EDUCATION”, supported by the University of Stuttgart, the SRH University Heidelberg, the Heidelberg University of Education, and various partners, focuses on schools and their importance in today’s ‘information society’.
Learning in the digital age, inclusive teaching, whole-day and nondenominational schools are just a few key words used to describe the paradigm shift taking place in our schools. This shift presents a range of challenges when it comes to renovating and modernizing school buildings. The specialized knowledge of those involved is paramount when it comes to developing use- and user-oriented solutions. This symposium will provide the framework for a discussion between community representatives and other guests, focusing on the extent to which the current definition of schools as “places for learning and living” can be understood as a future planning task. The aim is to devise solution-oriented approaches for the renovation and modernization of school buildings in the future, and for the integration of schools in the community. In order to do this, it is important to understand school buildings not only as learning and living spaces, but also as important, socially sustainable components of our society.
The symposium will be opened by Prof. Astrid Ley, holder of the chair International Urban Planning at the University of Stuttgart’s Institute of Urban Planning. The symposium will focus on the key topic: “Schools as a space for everyone”, differentiating between the issues “in school buildings”, “within the city quarter”, and “during the process”. Representatives from Reality Lab will be discussing “spatial obliviousness in pedagogy or ignorance of planning processes” and will be answering questions from the audience.
The name “Reality Lab” stands for an innovative research format and a new model of cooperation between the fields of science and wider society, where the open and varied reality of everyday life in urban space is investigated collectively and integrally, with reference to specific projects. During the project phase, the key protagonists involved in the Reality Lab were been involved in research, experiments, learning, developing visions, and providing a wealth of though-provoking impulses. The three communal subprojects in Heidelberg, Stuttgart and Müllheim involved student competitions that simulated renovation projects, in school buildings and entire education landscapes, both in terms architecture and urban planning. Initial designs have already been incorporated into real processes. Working together with the laboratories, numerous Next Practice examples have been discussed and investigated in cooperation with the project partners.
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