weCARElab @ FUTUROMUNDO

FUTURO-MUNDO Foresight

Future Urban Economies Forum @ Mozartsaal, Liederhalle, Stuttgart, Germany, 10.00 -16.30, July 3, 2025

If urbanization continues to increase worldwide and cities play a decisive role in the climate transformation, business models and industries will have to evolve accordingly: Away from individual products or services towards new urban solutions in the life cycle.

This will create new markets at the interface between high-tech and low-tech, while at the same time requiring bold future scenarios and concepts for construction, mobility, energy, communication, entertainment and security in these future urban economies.

Join a journey into the visions and potentials of future-oriented business models in energy, mobility and trade that will make cities smarter and more sustainable.
Find out how economic success and social benefits can go hand in hand.

Program

Session 1
The International Stage. Next Urban Economies

 

10:00 Introduction
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Vanessa Borkmann, Director Urban Systems Engineering, Fraunhofer IAO, Stuttgart, Germany

10:10 Futurology and innovation for transformation in urban areas.
Klaus Burmeister, Future Researcher, Director, foresightlab, Berlin, Germany

10:30 Foresight – Future Readiness with strategic roadmapping: Introduction to the session.
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Vanessa Borkmann

11:00 Future Living – Urban Ecosystems Development in Uruguay.
Eduardo Battista, Founder & CEO, +Colonia, Argentina/Uruguay.

11:30 Future Cities in the Middle East & Asia – Business Potential for German Companies.
Dr.-Ing. Alexander Rieck, Director and Partner LAVA Laboratory of Visionary Architecture

12:00 Caring Future Lab – Healthy City Innovation in Hybrid Prevention and Care.
Prof. Elizabeth Sikiaridi & Prof. Frans Vogelaar, Hybrid Space Lab, Berlin, Germany

 

Prof. Elizabeth Sikiaridi
What does an integral approach look like that brings together the physical and digital dimensions of care and provides impetus for innovative solutions in the fields of care and prevention? How can we combine the best of technological innovations and digital and hybrid solutions with the socio-cultural dimensions of prevention and care? Together we are developing the healthy city – a 15-minute city with 5-minute communities committed to the One Health concept.
Prof. Elizabeth Sikiaridi contributes internationally to positive developments in society and the environment with the design lab and think tank for cultural innovation “Hybrid Space Lab”. After studying in Paris and at TU Darmstadt (graduating with distinction), she gained experience at Behnisch & Partner in Stuttgart. She has been a professor at the University of Duisburg-Essen since 1997 and currently heads the Master’s program “Sustainable Landscape Design and Development” at the TH OWL.

Prof. Frans Vogelaar has been a pioneer in the development of hybrid space, the fusion of physical space and digital networks, since the 1980s. In 1998, he founded the world’s first “Hybrid Space” chair at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne. With Hybrid Space Lab, Frans Vogelaar works very broadly internationally, contributing to innovation for governments, cultural institutions, professional organizations and global companies. He develops projects for combined physical and digital, urban-architectural and media spaces that integrate the biological and technological dimensions.
Prof. Frans Vogelaar studied at the Design Academy in Eindhoven (diploma with distinction) and the Architectural Association School of Architecture (AA) in London and worked at Studio Alchimia/Alessandro Mendini in Milan and at the Office for Metropolitan Architecture/Rem Koolhaas.

 

12.30-13.00 Panel The “Future Positive” Experiment – True Progress in Urban Systems
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Vanessa Borkmann, Klaus Burmeister, Eduardo Battista, Prof. Elizabeth Sikiaridi & Prof. Frans Vogelaar

Session 2
New Urban Business and Opportunities

 

13:20 Introduction
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Vanessa Borkmann, Director Urban Systems Engineering, Fraunhofer IAO, Stuttgart, Germany

13:30 Synthetic Realities – Visualisierung und Spekulation kritisch urbaner Räume mit künstlich intelligenten Systemen.
Marc Engenhart, Engenhart Design Studio, Germany

14:00 Uhr Metaverse-enhanced Smart Spaces: Building Resilient and Sustainable Urban and Industrial Futures
Joe Appleton, President Metaverse-Enhanced Spaces Alliance (MESA), Smart Cities Director, BizzTech, Austin, USA

14:30 Uhr Heilbronn als Role Model für Urban Business Development – ein Fokus auf den IPAI
Tim Schmitt, Head of Corporate Real Estate, IPAI, Germany

Session 3
Next Business Today

 

15:00 Introduction
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Vanessa Borkmann

15:05 Cities in the digital transformation: avatars as the future of urban communication
Maximilian Schmierer, CEO, B.Rex, Germany

15:20 How we are bringing the future of agriculture to the city. Sustainability meets taste.
Jedrzej Cichocki, Director Kleinblatt, Stuttgart, Germany

15:35 The metropolis of the future through the eyes of children
Dominik Bär, Director Kinderfreundliche Kommunen e.V., Germany
Bernhard Hane, Initiator World Child Forum, Davos, Director Mätsch, Studio for Interaction, Germany

Session 4
Outlook: New Challenges.

 

15:45 Future Everything – Innovation as Strategy
Raphael Gielgen, Vitra GmbH, Trendscout, Future of Work, Germany

16:25 Farewell and outlook for the evening program
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Vanessa Borkmann

Impulses for Hybrid, Caring Urban Development

“Urban development today must think far beyond architecture, technology and planning and shape the interplay of physical and digital spaces always from a cultural, caring and community-oriented perspective.” The work in the Hybrid Space Lab and the international teaching in the field of sustainable landscape and urban design are based on the approach of hybrid spaces. The aim is to create new interfaces between analog and digital living environments that promote social change and ecological resilience.

The focus is on cultural innovation: “We see ourselves as a cultural breeding ground for incubating breakthrough concepts and fostering innovation, contributing to positive, societal and environmental change.” The focus is not on technology-centered visions, but on the cultural mindset that develops innovative solutions for complex challenges in a transdisciplinary and deliberately “undisciplined” way. Transformation is seen as a cultural and social task, not just a question of politics or economics.

In view of the rapid technological and social acceleration of recent decades, challenges ranging from climate change to biodiversity loss call for a “care” logic that places human and non-human actors at the center of consideration. The design of public hybrid spaces in particular is key to enabling social participation, encounters and health prevention. Projects such as the City Kit in Hong Kong, the participatory climate adaptation project Poly Garden City in Athens and the greening of the Humboldt Forum in Berlin are examples of how the Hybrid Space Lab combines digital and analog approaches to create new forms of appropriation and collective learning spaces.

The integration of digitality is always a supplement, not a replacement for the analog. Artistic and participatory experiments that use the digital to bring – in a novel manner – memories and controversies to life can be found, for example, in the project for “Valle de los Caídos” in Spain or in the Animal Club project promoting biodiversity in the Berlin and international clubbing scene. It is important that digital technologies are designed from the user’s perspective and serve social concerns: “We approach digital technologies from a cultural perspective in order to transform them to fit the way we want to live as a society.”

A particular focus is on the topic of hybrid health and prevention. In view of demographic change and growing loneliness, it is essential to understand health promotion as an interplay between the built and green environment, social spaces and digital tools.

The future is hybrid – it’s not only digital.

Digital innovations in medicine and care offer opportunities, but must not exacerbate social inequalities and must always be complemented by empathy and social spaces. Examples from the Netherlands illustrate how communal spaces, communal gardening and the collective care of urban nature have an immense impact on health and cohesion. The daily maintenance of green spaces in some districts of Rotterdam thus becomes a health program in which everyone can participate. In the Netherlands, the creation of social spaces (vegetable gardens, repair cafés, etc.) has succeeded in reducing healthcare costs.

Urban change should not be understood as a purely technological task, but as a deeply cultural and social one. We need “Agents of Care” who use empathy, creativity and trans-disciplinarity to build bridges between innovation and social progress: „From Agents of Change to Agents of Care – developing empathy and social cohesion with real people and fostering what markets do not provide.“

Shaping Positive Futures: From Urban Vision to Effective Transformation
Rethinking Future Urban Economies – Visions, Experiments and Impulses for the City of Tomorrow

 Impulses and insights from the Futuromundo Foresight Festival 2025

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Vanessa Borkmann

Panel Talk with Prof. Elizabeth Sikiaridi, Prof. Frans Vogelaar, Dr. Alexander Rieck, Eduardo Bastitta: Das “Future Positive Experiment – Radical Innovations in Urban Systems“.
The panel participants discuss the importance of experiments as catalysts for genuine innovation. What is needed is not incremental progress, but radical approaches that open up spaces of possibility for new futures.

At the start of the panel discussion, sentence beginnings are supplemented by the statements of the discussants.

“A future-positive city begins where…” „care for humans and non-humans is at the core because we’re interdependent.“ (Prof. Sikiaridi)
Positioning thus the principle of care and the connection between people and the environment as the basis for positive urban development.

„True progress in urban systems becomes visible when…“ we consider all factors and also all social groups, from social groups that don’t have access to the digital up to the early adopters.” (Prof. Vogelaar)
He emphasizes that a sustainable city must bring together different social groups in order to achieve real progress.

„To experiment with the future of cities means to…“ „humancentric even before you get started“ (Eduardo Bastitta)
He explains that at Mas Colonia, the residents themselves validate the development model: „Our buyers, our future citizens, are validating our product, our model, our city, our culture.“ The concept relies on the involvement of the future community and its decisions at an early stage and refers to experiments in urban development.

“Europe will need bold urban experiments like…” „at the moment, we are not brave at all, not future brave.“ (Dr. Rieck).
He sees a lack of willingness to innovate and a lack of courage as key obstacles to progress in Europe and calls for a new approach to dealing with the unknown.

The panel talk first focusses on how to bridge the gap between bottom-up approaches and large-scale, market-driven projects.

Prof. Vogelaar analyzes the tension between stable systems and necessary instability: „I think what is very interesting is this tension between instability and stability.“ He refers to historical examples such as the emergence of democracy and the dualism between system preservation and innovation.

Prof. Sikiaridi uses the examples of Paris and London to show that if you do something very quickly and with great foresight, you can run into major problems later on. While London introduced gas lighting throughout the city, Paris only equipped its main streets with gas lighting. When electricity came along, Paris was able to introduce electric lighting throughout the city. She emphasizes that systems must be flexible and anti-fragile. „It’s important to develop systems that have the flexibility and do not, you know, be too quick in implementing something and making it too robust.“ The moderation raises the question: „Isn’t it a matter of adaptability?“ Sikiaridi agrees and calls for systems that also consciously retain non-functional parts in order to be able to react to future requirements.

Both sides agree that both stability and instability are necessary. Vogelaar notes that there is too little willingness to experiment in Germany and that „Germany really suffers from a ‚stability crisis‘, not allowing instability and fragility.“ In comparison, the Dutch healthcare system is more willing to experiment, but has other weaknesses.

Bastitta describes the challenge of rapid technological development in urban planning:: „Technology is moving so fast that it really drives you crazy. The most important thing is to remain flexible and to be able to implement on real projects that are marketable projects, but still we are driving crazy.“ He describes how the planning of parking garages could already be overtaken by developments in the field of autonomous driving and emphasizes: „The most important thing is to remain flexible.“ The entrepreneurial approach of testing marketable innovations in a “sandbox” model is central to this.

Dr. Rieck reflects critically on the technology-centered logic: „We are stuck in a world of engineers at one area and of lawyers in the other area. And in between, there’s nothing.“ Innovation must be geared towards people’s actual needs and dreams: „What is our dream? What is the dream of someone in Africa?“ He considers the transferability of European city models to other contexts, such as the 15-Minute City in Saudi Arabia, to be problematic.

Sikiaridi und Rieck agree that failures are a necessary part of innovation and experimentation. Rieck states: „You can’t do experiments anymore. That’s a problem.“ However, in Europe there is often a lack of courage to experiment and a willingness to learn from mistakes. Vogelaar emphasizes the necessity of failure being also be part of the system: „You need the courage to fail. Failure can be even more interesting than success.“ 

The further discussion focuses on the importance of transferring experience from other projects. Bastitta describes how Mas Colonia as a „regulatory sandbox“¹⁰ benefits from a favorable environment and tests innovations that would not be possible elsewhere for regulatory reasons in close coordination with the government. Experiences from other international projects are being adapted, but not adopted one-to-one.

The panelists then analyze how interdisciplinary work and overcoming silos can promote innovation. Vogelaar sees the strong separation of specialist disciplines in Germany as a cultural problem and advocates a balance between in-depth expertise and the open integration of different perspectives: „You need both at the same time. It’s not one or the other.“ Sikiaridi emphasizes the importance of diversity: „If you want to be inclusive, you need diversity… And on the other hand, you need people that are outsiders because innovation depends exactly on that.“ She adds that workshops with a wide range of participants help to break down thought barriers and generate new ideas. She emphasizes that the greatest potential for innovation lies in bringing together things that do not belong together.

Rieck concludes with a metaphor: „If you want to build a boat, don’t teach the people how to use the tools, make them loving the sea.“ This makes it clear that a shared vision is crucial for sustainable innovation.

In conclusion, Bastitta describes how a broad social consensus was achieved in Mas Colonia through open communication and consistent involvement of the community – even across national borders. Crises offer the opportunity for fundamental change: „It was a good fertile time to talk about something new.“

Vogelaar summarizes the strategic stance with a reference to Winston Churchill: „Don’t waste a good crisis.“ Crises are the best opportunities for innovation.

The interplay of care, participation, experimentation, error culture, diversity and regulatory innovation is a central building-block for a positive urban future. The discussion made clear that courage, institutionalized flexibility, openness to mistakes and interdisciplinary exchange are key success factors for future-oriented urban development and urban innovation. The panel discussion emphasized the need for providing experimentation spaces, for breaking down rigid structures and understanding diversity as a resource for sustainable transformation.

The panel discussion thus paints a picture of a “future positive city” as an adaptive, inclusive and visionary urban organism.