The project „Innovationswerkstatt Neu Leopoldau“ (short: Werkstatt Neu Leopoldau) accompanies the settlement of the urban neighborhood in Vienna’s 21st district as applied research. The phase of arrival of residents and users in the district is to be investigated and co-designed as a potential for social sustainability in Viennese housing. In addition to the basic structural and organizational design framework, there is strong design potential above all in the organization of community life and shared resources, in issues such as mobility and open space, but also in social networking and neighborhood support.
With a view to the proven and the new, the settlement process should be understood as a socially integrative potential that can be shaped collaboratively and co-creatively. Life and coexistence in the neighborhood will thus be further developed co-productively. Together with central stakeholders, capacity building strategies are to be developed. The target groups are the residents and other users of the housing complexes, as well as the property managers, experts and intermediary institutions that provide professional support for the settlement process and neighborhood life. Conceptually, the settlement phase is viewed as an experimental learning and potential educational setting with specific framework conditions such as knowledge networks, interests and coalitions of interests.
Based on the experiences of the involved actors and with special consideration of already established and still possible social innovations in urban development, relevant topics and questions will be elaborated in a co-creative process with the involvement of residents (e.g., social innovations such as social accompaniment of settlement, community spaces and sharing of further resources etc.). The next step is to select and focus on key topics, which are then worked on in greater depth with the target groups in collaborative workshops. An important goal of the project is the development of transformation knowledge in a spatial context in order to generate or strengthen learning and educational processes on an individual and institutional level.
future.lab Research Center of the Technische Universität Wien in cooperation with the team of the International Building Exhibition Vienna 2022, the district management GB*Nord, the citizens, the property managers, experts and intermediary institutions that provide professional support for the settlement process and neighborhood life.
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