Elective. Mastercourse of “Transforming City Regions”.
UNESCO Chair of Urban Design.
Univ. Prof. Christa Reicher, Faculty of Architecture, RWTH Aachen
Guidance:
Prof. em Dr. Ing. Andrea Haase
Student-Participants:
Lizia Santucci, Xizi Zhang, Amin Amini, Zihan Wang, Wenbo Li, Ghazal Laghaei, Kiana Jaberi, Deniz Gleiss
Editorial Board:
Prof. em Dr. Ing. Andrea Haase, cand. MSc. Lizia Santucci
Lecturer: Prof. em Dr. Ing. Andrea Haase
Summer Semester 2026
… was oriented on teaching inductive conceptual approaches to a locally specific site in Aachen (Richterich). It was about exploring general and locally specific information about urban expansion by widening the existing edge of the urban condition for integrating agriculture into new urban-rural morphologies, building up a conceptual framework for a position to be found by structuring knowledge through testing visualizations. The tests needed to hold against values and their criteria from theoretical backgrounds to be defined. According to the hypothesis (to be found on this basis), a multi-scale socio-spatial and cultural vision for space was requested, enfolding and evaluating socio-spatial and cultural concepts for qualifying the urban-rural fabric for new spaces in time.
The course has enabled graduates (1st-3rd semester) to find individually or group-wise theme-related methods to study/ research, requesting a final elaboration of text/ visualization (2-3 pages + presentation):
-THEME/ RESEARCH INTEREST (one part of the THEME): SENSING, stating “factual problems” and appropriate solutions (hypothesis/ vision = strategy + measurements)
-METHODOLOGY: Theme-related ways + means of investigation/ evaluation
-ANALYSIS/ DISCUSSION: Working fields/ aspects/ criteria, assuming to evaluate selected options for solutions
-CONCLUSIONS: Reasoning the hypothesis by aspects of rationality and of intuition (“true judgement”)
-BASIC APPROACH TO RESEARCH BY DESIGN – SENSING: Innovation is not about forcing change. It is about creating conditions where transformation can take root.
The course has trained the argument of the students with themselves … through brainstorming/ preparing for a Final Elaboration
▪ Defining the “starting point” of developing knowledge by SENSING
▪ Raising a “valid question” in order to achieve a “valid answer” (How to counterbalance preventatively unwanted effects – by design?)
▪ Enfolding a theme-related methodology for testing the hypothesis/ vision
▪ Decoding and codifying primary and secondary data by inductive/ deductive evaluations
▪ Contributing to “Qualifying the environment” multi-disciplinarily by multi-scale evaluation of factual conditions