Symbiotic Systems — Annual Topic Winter 2025/2026 and Summer 2026

The annual theme of the Chair of Regenerative Urbanism for the winter semester 2025/26 and the summer semester 2026 is Symbiotic Systems. It addresses the critical design of relations and interactions among ecological, social, and technological processes. Here, cities are understood not as consumers of resources but as productive agents within ecosystems. The aim is to interlink biodiversity, water and material cycles, and social infrastructures in ways that generate new forms of resilience, diversity, and shared regeneration.

At the centre is the question of how urban spaces can themselves become symbiotic organisms: ecologically, by strengthening and connecting natural habitats; socially, by enabling neighbourhoods and commons to assume cooperative responsibility; and technologically, by using digital tools and data-informed design decisions to learn from ecological intelligences.

We pursue a design-led inquiry into how cities can anchor symbiotic systems in architecture, urban ecosystems, and infrastructure. The outcome sought is an urban realm that provides a regenerative habitat and renders the coexistence of species, people, and technologies productive.