Current courses

VILNIUS – CITY PORTRAIT

+ get to know a vibrant capital of the Baltics

+ draw together a city portrait through spatial explorations

+ imagine projects as knowledge producer

This urban design studio is a platform for free projects, working together on a city portrait of Vilnius. As capital of Lithuania, it is seen as one of the most dynamic and vibrant cities in the Baltics with a long history as cultural connector. Different layers, contrasts, and entangled memories – of the historic city centre, destructions, transformations, and renewals, the influence of Soviet-time urbanistic ideas, recent high-rise developments, wide urban expansion – are contrasting with surprising continuities, of baroque colours, modernist architecture, topography and nature. Phenomena such as informal reclamation of urban spaces, contradictions, unconventionalities and provocations, densification and regeneration projects collide with touristification and gentrification. We aim to discover heterogeneous economic, social, and cultural impulses and their expression in space, in an overall perspective of reuse and transformation of the city.

In this studio, space will be understood as a lens to read culture and society. With architectural-urbanistic research methods, we will target interactions between space and society that influence urban change. Collective work on a city portrait, in this sense, aims not to solve a puzzle with a final image. But as an open, interactive, and creative game—individual viewpoints, collected voices, urban potentials are streamed and formed into narratives to understand a city and to project its change. Both phases of the studio are part of this game: 1) exploration and investigation of selected spatial situations and patterns and the topics they contribute in urban change, in an urbanistic-anthropological sense, through graphics, images, photography, texts. 2) and urban projects derived from the exploration that at the same time become knowledge producers, about trajectories, chances, pathways, obstacles of urban change.

Students will work in groups of two in the two phases on: 1) a investigation dossier on selected places and patterns, with exploration of potentials, analysis of contexts and frameworks, building of hypotheses and approaches, and 2) a design dossier on the set-up and development of spatial interventions as transformative and knowledge-producing projects, and the narratives energising this process. Both phases are connecting different scales, a more targeted urban/architectural scale (1:500/1:200) with an urban/territorial scale (1:5000/1:2000) addressing context and impact. In a third phase, the game of portraying a city is brought to juxtaposing and confronting the pieces, networking and debating larger trajectories and interactions.

This course is in English.

Dealing with existing buildings and vacant properties is increasingly becoming one of the key tasks for a new generation of planners, architects and designers. With the CIRCULAR DESIGN LAB – Part II, we invite you to a two-day, practice-oriented design-build workshop. Together, we will examine a specific vacant property and develop experimental, craft-based, and creative approaches to open up new perspectives on the existing structure. The aim is to reveal the potential within existing buildings, rethink materials and implement ideas directly on-site on a 1:1 scale. We will work in small teams on various topics such as Urban Dimension, Re-Use and Bio Innovation. The LAB sees itself as an open experimental space: trying things out, building, discussing and thinking ahead together.

The workshop will take place in and around a unique building: a former clubhouse and social venue on the green belt and riverbank between Linden and Nordstadt in Hannover. The building, which is around 150 years old and was most recently used by the water ski club, now stands empty and is considered at risk of demolition from an economic perspective. At the same time, there is a growing desire to preserve the building. The City of Hanover, the Chair for Territorial Design and Urban Planning of Leibniz University Hannover, the Woge housing cooperative, and several clubs are currently working to develop new prospects for the building. The vision: to fundamentally transform the building over the coming years, in collaboration with experts, trainees and students – from a neglected vacant property into a vibrant hub for clubs, training, social interaction and community engagement. The CIRCULAR DESIGN LAB sees itself as an initial practical initiative to test ideas, bring people together and explore new possibilities for this special place.

This course is in German and English.

Part of the activities of CiD Circular Design Innovation Alliance funded by the European Union.

http://www.cid-innovationalliance.eu

Creative approaches and interdisciplinary collaboration are crucial when dealing with vacant buildings. This is precisely what the LAB focuses on. Here, vacant buildings are not seen as a problem, but as a field of experimentation that harbours undiscovered potential and opens up new perspectives. As part of this project, students have the opportunity to work in interdisciplinary teams and jointly develop experimental installations. The LAB is a space for creative exchange, where innovative ideas meet practical solutions.

The project phase will begin with an online kick-off meeting on 18 September 2025 at 12 noon, followed by an intensive week of work from 2 to 9 October 2025. During this time, the focus will be on developing installations, tidying up the inventory and actively contributing. The tasks include documenting, creating detailed drawings and planning installations. These tasks not only enrich your own experience, but also create a new hub in Hanover – a place where new and innovative solutions can emerge.

Through practical expeditions and targeted exercises, dealing with the existing inventory becomes the core task: How can spaces be reinterpreted and transformed? The aim is to engage intensively with the location, develop circular solutions through dialogue, and learn practical methods from experts. The CiD LAB combines designing, making, and reflecting. The results of this intensive week will be presented in a joint exhibition.

The workshop is part of the activities of the CiD Circular Design Innovation Alliance, funded by the European Union.

This course will be in English.

There is no architecture without the city. Architectural work derives from the tasks and future of the societies and communities for which architects design and build; and architecture refers to the context of material, functional and meaningful space, in a variety of references and scales. When the professional practice and academic nature of the discipline argues its uniqueness and significance in cultural, political and economic discussions, it is today faced with an additional task: to explore and explain what city actually means. We go one step further: by territory we mean the built environment in larger contexts, especially in the interplay of country and city, in a vision of settlement as habitat. How has territory changed, which current and future changes can we name? How can we redefine the interfaces between architectural and urban planning with infrastructure, culture and nature, landscape, economy and society? What is the role and task of architecture not only for the design of buildings, but also for the articulation of spaces on a larger scale of the territory? Which concepts and design tools are necessary for this, how can they be communicated?

This course will be in German.

In the programme MSc Architecture and Urban Design, OPEN TOPIC can be used to work on research dossiers, especially in preparation for the master thesis. 

In the programme BSc Architecture, OPEN TOPIC can be used for research in preparation and support of an individual bachelor thesis in urban design.

This module deepens skills for the development of independent urban planning project work with regard to the design of urban development and urban planning processes and the communication of projects and strategies both in an interdisciplinary and public focus; understanding of the systems of thought, inclusion/integration and modes of action of different groups of actors in planning processes; development of spatial concepts in communicative and participatory processes.

This course will be in German.

Individual offers by arrangement.

Living with Urban Streams and Flows

The “Rivers and cities” workshop in the Erasmus+ Programme BIP (Blended Intensive Programme) is the fourth event in a series, the itinerant laboratory for territorial innovation initiated as international cooperation by the Leibniz University Han­nover, which combines the skills of partners with multiple chal­lenges in different situations applying innovative approaches in urban planning, urban design and architecture that are the subject of the partners’ methodological research.

The town of Škofja Loka, with its long and layered history, was strategically established at the confluence of two sister rivers - Selška and Poljanska Sora. Over centuries, it has experienced and lived through all of the roles and transformations described above. The narratives emerging from changing attitudes toward rivers and river spaces - together with analytical studies, local knowledge, and the visions and aspirations of both authorities and residents - will form the foundation and inspiration for the students’ design proposals. 

The workshop will focus on five distinct ambiences along the Sora rivers, which differ significantly in their history, present use, character, degree of centrality, and natural and geomorphological conditions. These include places for summer swimming, areas of living and working, the reimagining of former industrial sites, the sustainable accessibility of river embankments, and the mitigation of flooding and torrential risks through nature-based, resilient, and sustainable design approaches.

In the summer school RIVERS & CITIES, organised by the University of Ljubljana, participate 40 students and 10 professors and researchers from 5 universities:

• University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Architecture (Organiser)
• University of Palermo, Department of Architecture
• Leibniz University Hannover, Institute of Urban Design and Planning
• Estonian Academy of Arts, Faculty of Architecture, Department of Urban Studies
• Università Politecnica delle Marche, Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture

This course is in English.

Funded by the European Union as Erasmus+ Blended Intensive Programme 

For this course, students have been already selected.

Vilnius is one of the most exciting and dynamic cities in the Baltic States, place of a vibrant cultural scene and a rich cultural heritage. During the excursion, we will gain insights into current issues of urban change and of transforming spaces, and undertake artistic and research-based explorations. Part of the excursion involves attending the ‘What Goes Around Comes Around’ conference with its installations and tours, organised by Architekturos Fondas as part of the CiD Circular Design Innovation Alliance. The excursion can also serve as preparation for the Urban Design Studio on Vilnius in the summer semester. Its idea is to collaboratively create a portrait of the city through designs on various themes and locations chosen and explored by the students themselves.

This course is in English.

Part of the activities of CiD Circular Design Innovation Alliance funded by the European Union.

http://www.cid-innovationalliance.eu

Activating towns along the Weser river 

With this urban design studio, we are focussing on the Weser river between Minden and Nienburg and many smaller towns and villages in between. We aim at understanding the implications between living, working, moving, settlement, and the river – to grasp the territorial role of the river as a resource and as threat, increasing with climate change. We invite to work with existing structures, discovering, reviving and reusing buildings, open spaces, and urban tissues – to activate places, create new meanings and new networks for living, working, and moving, establish new connections, innovate social infrastructures and cultural places. Inspired by the CiD Circular Design project, circularity, circular economy, and bio-innovation will be brought into the game.

Student groups of four will each choose a town or village, explore its space, organise ‘territorial visits’ as a cultural experience and talk to initiatives and stakeholders. The design work on a focus area (scale 1:500/200) is expanded into a vision for the town or village (1:2000), on programming, activation, and actors’ networks.  We will put together, during the work process, the different places and topics that the groups choose, to form a mosaic of transformations and discuss as larger networks of activities, flows, and imagination - towards a territorial vision for attractive living places in peripheries, outside of metropolis.

Accompanied by the Urban Design 2 lecture series, this design studio trains analytical, design and presentation skills on an urban and territorial scale with a concrete practical example. Supervision and discussions in small groups, intermediate colloquia and the final presentation systematically guide students towards the independent application of urban design methods are aimed in particular at presentation and communication skills. 

TERRITORIAL URBANISM

Lecture series urban design and planning,  6 CP (with design studio)

Contact: Prof. Jörg Schröder

‘Territorial Urbanism’ is based on designed spatial patterns at different scales - region, valley, plain, place, building - in order to capture current figures of metropolitan urban regions, networks of cities and settlement structures in a wide range and distribution. New polarities between city and countryside are the starting point for an actualisation of urban planning and architectural concepts and attitudes. New knowledge about the interacting layers - material, figurative, functional and idealistic - of the territory and their significance for social challenges should be understood as the basis for spatial design, spatial planning and sustainable spatial development.

The lecture expands the view beyond megacities, densely populated areas and city centres into the vastness of space: into peripheries, rural spaces, urban networks, villages, temporary and tourist locations, spaces characterised by infrastructure. Territorial Urbanism, however, refers above all to the question of the construction of spaces, also on a larger scale, as material and ideal culture; as formation over time, in the interplay of diverse production conditions of space, social forces, convictions and desires. With this perspective, space is positioned not only as a basis, but also as an active/activating factor for societal challenges, in close relation to social, economic, ecological and cultural dimensions.