Middle East Cooperation (MEC) Unit

The Cooperation Network between the Universities of Aleppo, Alexandria, Bagdad, Beirut, Cairo, Damascus, Sulaimani and Cottbus aims an intensive professional exchange and teamwork for Master-students and lecturers in the subjects of architecture and urban planning. During the cooperation, professional exchange and teamwork is intensified step by step in order to develop an effective, clearly arranged and institutionally fixed multilateral cooperation among partners of the network.

The overarching theme of the cooperation is urban design, the most important intersection between architecture and urban planning, with major focus on revitalization and integrated development of historic cities. The MEC Unit has built its focal point based on the outstanding expertise and competences that is developed in Germany and its eastern federal states on cautious urban renewal, revitalization and enhancement of historic city quarters which have also been taught at the Faculty of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Urban Planning at the BTU ever since its establishment in 1992. These topics have been integrated into a multilateral and exchange-based educational platform in order to further concentrate on case-specific studies from the diverse and rich urban heritage of the Middle East which also suffer from different sets of contemporary urban complications and challenges. It is within this context, that various activities of the cooperation network were developed since its establishment in 2003. Accordingly, the outcome of the joint Summer Schools and Urban Design Workshops which have been continuously organized since 2006 in each of the partner universities have proved the value of such multilateral exchange.