Planning practice shapes the experiences of architects, and appropriation influences the experiences of users. Both architects and users express themselves using different terms. The statements about built environment created in the language of architecture and in the language of the user are based on knowledge and experiences gained. The lecture draws on four different types of methods. The examples from Christopher Alexander‘s 'Pattern Language' and from 'thanks for the views, mr. mies: lafayette park detroit' by Danielle Aubert, Lana Cavar, Natasha Chandani framed by the analysis of architectural gestures (Jäkel), help to describe and to better undestand the communication between the users and the space in architecture.

The region of Lusatia, in particular the city of Cottbus/Chóśebuz have had an eventful history and will continue to be shaped by enormously dynamic developments in the future. Much of what the municipalities are faced in terms of processes, comprehensive areas of responsibility and future topics of urban development is already visible here. Extensive urban renewal and urban redevelopment measures have been implemented over the past decades, including major projects such as the main station transport hub. With the valorisation of the former Cottbus-Nord lignite opencast mining area, Germany’s largest artificial inland lake, the “Cottbuser Ostsee”, is being created in the current decade. This will be an expression of modern urban development in connection with climate justice. At the Cottbus/Chóśebuz site, large-scale structural change and structural development projects are being developed in the course of back out from the energetic use of lignite. More than 10,000 new jobs are expected, which poses new challenges for the city and requires the active involvement of the public in the planning processes.

The city is a complex structure that is subject to constant change: always unfinished, in the process of permanent reconstruction and continuous development. The changes in a city take place iteratively, i.e. each development step in urban fabric refers to previous ones and reshapes the whole. Thus, the present cityscape always includes past stages of development. We encounter history as a spatial structure. In order to understand the city in its current form and functioning and to be able to react appropriately, it is essential to look at its history in the sense of an anamnesis. Only an in-depth reading of the city allows us to recognize contexts of meaning and, based on this, to name problem areas and to make creative interventions in the complex structure of the city. Some facets of the city are easy for anyone to read, while others are indistinct or blurred and require specific methodical approaches. On one hand, reading the shape of the city illuminates current life and events; on the other hand, looking closely and reading traces unearths facets of the city that have been forgotten. This tracing allows for conceiving contexts that can open up new and unusual perspectives. Seen in this way, history forms the foundation for the future as much as the confrontation with history expands the space of possibilities.

The simple distinction between the public sphere, as that which takes place outside, and the private sphere, as that which takes place inside the home, was wrong from the start, although this definition held up for a long time, especially in architecture. Here we need only refer to Robert Venturi‘s understanding of the ‚Nolli‘ plan of Rome, which is still the basis in the USA. In pre-digital architectural theory, however, there are a number of understandings, especially from sociology, that define public and private not as (geometric) space, but as spheres of social behavior, functional content, and cognitive processing. From predigital everyday life, the beginning of the illumination of cities, travel in carriages, by ship, train or car and the communication media (daily newspapers, telephone, radio, TV) could be listed here. Once again, the two spheres mixed anew in the process of progressive digitization and the new assignment of functions.

Representation techniques in architecture and planning allow for viewing, understanding and discussing a design or urban site regardless of the temporal and physical distance from it. They translate complex socio-spatial fabric into functionally structured elements and relations, which can further be reconfigured in another space and time. However, while such representation techniques allow for the most complex urban space to be reproduced in another medium, Dalibor Vesely warns that “we have come to accepting relatively isolated forms of representation as the sole criteria of truth and what is real”. From a critical perspective, representations as abstractions of embodied dimensions of space emphasize homogenizing technocratic operation while largely disregarding differentiated lived experiences. The assumedrational objectivity of their topological projections glosses over power asymmetries inherent in often contentious production of urban space. This means that drawings, images, stories, texts, data, algorithms and performances are not merely neutral abstractions of past, present and future urban environments – they are deeply embedded in, and performative of, asymmetries in power relations.

The presentation explained integrated urban development planning as an informal and widely used planning instrument. It is one of the working principles of the New Leipzig Charter on the transformative power of the cities for the common good. The consecutive work steps to create an integrated urban development concept, also often known as a framework plan with strong elements of participation, were delineated and exemplary representations were shown.

In the XIX century, Jean‐Nicolas‐Louis Durand made the systematization of architecture the solution to guarantee the balance of a project. Can we also design housing architecture at the time of pandemic in a similar way? The presentation is an attempt to show how the pandemic has affected and still continues to affect the housing and design perspectives. How does pandemic influence the shaping of space together with housing architecture? Is the pandemic treated as a barrier or perhaps as a challenge for the future, space and housing development?

In current global situations, we are all facing difficulties due to the severe crises such as Ukraine and Russia conflict, massive inflation, energy crisis, pandemic. During this tough time, architecture should help people to have a healthier life both mentally and physically. Historic buildings or built heritage can play a crucial role in this regard. They have historic, social and shared memory (or value) that can help people to improve their social life by strengthen of the shared legacy on the one hand, and have a high quality for healthy experience or life on the other hand. The challenge in such buildings or site is the dichotomy between preservation and development. While we all know that historic buildings because of their values must be protected to improve one aspect of our life which is maybe not that much tangible. However, paying enough attention to current and future life/experience of users or occupants in various ways such as their indoor air quality, thermal comfort as well as some necessary consideration such as energy efficiency and circular economy considerations.

Designing Places of Everyday Life is a two part lecture series offering insight into three main themes: the complexity of designing in general, the notion of designing introverted and/or extroverted places, as well as the everyday lives of the objects or places we design. As an introduction the audience is confronted with theoretical approaches to the term place, as opposed to space. This relation is further used to address a number of other dichotomies that are regularly used in architectural jargon, for instance: public vs. private, common vs. individual, design vs. use, urbanism vs. architecture. Those binaries are also frequently taught in architecture schools, as often complex themes are initially more easily explained through contrasting terms. In later practice, however, the scope needs to be broadened, and the perspective shifted. It is thus argued that rather than looking at these terms as conflicting binaries, they could be looked at as two halves of the same whole, with all the space in between them taken into account. For the purpose of the lecture, this perspective is called the “& condition”, and it will further be discussed in the context of the perceived complexity of architectural and urban designing. In the lecture, designing is looked at as a process, as a practice and as a cycle.

Under the title Figures of the Fragmentary. Hans Scharoun‘s Geschwister-Scholl School in the context of school architecture and post-war urban planning the lecture focuses the notion of the fragment. With the fragment we are opening a field going far beyond the architectural. In modern discourses the fragment embodies the radical gesture of liberation of the arts from the idea of the aesthetically beautiful, harmonious and whole.

#traumfabrikcb – Ideen für die Stadtpromenade in Cottbus: The project Die Traumfabrik (The Dream Factory - Ideas for the City Promenade in Cottbus) gathered ideas for the subsequent use of the wasteland in the very heart of the city center. Kollektiv Stadtsucht invited the citizens to paint their own pictures of the abandoned city promenade.The citizens were called upon to share their ideas on how to make this open space available for everyone and to contribute to the development of this place with a complex history that engages the city‘s population. The residents, visitors, and future users illustrated their visions on the postcard templates. The collection covered a broad spectrum of ideas, broke down conceptual barriers, and encouraged unconventional ways of dealing with the public space.