New learning at older schools

What opportunities do the conversion and expansion of schools resp. educational landscapes offer for the sustainable development of urban districts? This is one of the research questions by the Laboratory of Reality CITY-SPACE-DEVELOPMENT, in which the University of Stuttgart is also involved under the auspices of the SRH University Heidelberg. This will be discussed in the course of the conference “Old School – New Learning” on Thursday, 30th March 2017 from 1.30 pm in Stuttgart (L-Bank, Börsenplatz 1). Around 120 participants are expected, including representatives from Baden-Württemberg municipalities and schools. 

We are cordially inviting representatives of the media to a press meeting at 12 noon and a guided tour through the exhibition. Dr Thorsten Erl from the Institute for Urban Development at the University of Stuttgart is at your disposal for any questions you may have. 

We would kindly ask you to register at charlotte.eller@si.uni-stuttgart.de

The change from an industrial to a knowledge-based society, more whole-day offers, new methods of teaching and learning as well as the implementation of inclusive learning means schools and municipalities face a paradigm shift, which poses great challenges to them. In order to overcome these, there is on the one hand a great need for conversions and new buildings; on the other hand schools have to link up more intensively with clubs as well as social and cultural associations. This can only succeed if schools, municipalities, representatives of science and the civil society as well as practitioners jointly think of “school as a learning and lebensraum” and understand this as an important planning task for the science society. The aim is to shape solution approaches for the future school conversions and the integration of schools in their districts.   

In order to move these discussions on, notable keynote speakers have been invited to the conference. For example, Dr Otto Seydel (Institute for School Development) will report on his experiences “as a school building consultant in the planning procedure”, Professor Angela Million (TU Berlin) as well as Professor Thomas Coelen (Siegen Centre for Social Science Educational Research) will be explaining the “City Building Block School“. Professor Markus Allmann (Institute for Interior Concepts and Fundamentals of Design, University of Stuttgart and Allmann Sattler Wappner Architekten, Munich) will be speaking about “school building as a cultural planning task“. The event will be opened by Isabell Fezer, Mayoress of the City of Stuttgart for Youth and Education. 

An exhibition will show the interim results of the project “OLD SCHOOL – New Learning“, which are also a topic of a panel discussion. In the project students from the University of Stuttgart together with representatives of the City of Heidelberg will be working out a realisation study for a Heidelberg school, which is to have a pilot character. 

Science and society research together 

The concept “Laboratory of Reality“ stands for an innovative research format and a new model of cooperation between science and society that has been funded by the State of Baden-Württemberg since 2015. The Laboratory of Reality CITY-SPACE-DEVELOPMENT is a network comprising SRH Heidelberg University (project management), the University of Stuttgart, the Heidelberg University of Education as well as three other institutions. The University of Stuttgart is represented with the Institute for Urban Development (municipal cooperations), the Institute for Interior Concepts and Foundations of Design  (realisation studies to reconstruct schools) as well as the International Centre for Cultural and Technical Research IZKT (events and PR work).