Summer School for Modern Building Research: Younger Building Stocks - Assessment of Qualities and Identification of Potentials

The majority of the buildings and infrastructures required in the future, has already been built. Due to the aging of existing structures and changing requirements, strategies for the maintenance and upgrading of buildings become more important. In addition to engineering competence, this sustainable approach requires a social discussion of values about the qualities and potential of existing buildings. At the European level, different recommendations for action based on local or regional cultural characteristics have already been developed and have led to different solutions.

Essential first steps for a knowledgeable discourse are still the observation, measurement, drawing and description – enhanced by the inspection and evaluation of written sources, traditions and eyewitness interviews. The intentions of the architects, engineers and urban planners involved can often be revealed in this way, right down to the specific planning and execution of building technology, construction and material. This also applies in particular to scientific work in the broad range of modern architecture of the second half of the 20th century.After half a century of standing, they are critically perceived in public discourse without their contribution to building culture and sustainable management being finally acknowledged. The discussion about the potential of large buildings from this era for environmentally friendly future planning should benefit from the different building culture characteristic backgrounds of the participants.

The Summer School is organised in cooperation with TU Delft and the University of Innsbruck and examines a specific building/ensemble from the 1970ies of the TU Braunschweig using modern building research methods in five consecutive work units, including an excursion to comparable buildings in Wolfsburg, where an exchange with the users / operator takes place.