CITYMAKERS

Wer hätte gedacht, dass Weißensee eine kleine Gruppe von Tiny House-Fans aufweist? Und dann auch noch im Schatten einer Kirchenruine auf einer Verkehrsinsel?

Interview mit Benedikt Härlin, Leiter des Berliner Büros der Zukunftsstiftung Landwirtschaft und Koordinator des Projekts „Weltacker“.

Looking at blind spots to find shared concerns within Sino-German innovation cooperation. A conversation with Prof. Dr. Doris Fischer, head of the expert Group of the Sino-German Innovation Platform and the department of China Business and Economics at the University of Würzburg.

Get to know Sebastian Schlecht, who is supporting our CITYMAKERS platform as the regional representative of CITYMAKERS- Ruhr. He strongly believes in the power of connecting people and natural solutions to make our cities more resilient, just and future-proof to mitigate the strong impact of climate change.

CITYMAKERS Knowledge-Hub: Aiming at understanding deeper the context of cities and urbanisation processes in China other than in Europe, we have generated various studies, recommendation papers, mappings, tools and more. See an overview on of our diverse print and e-publications here.

Get to know Kika Yang, who supports CITYMAKERS as a curator and editor, making use of a variety of formats such as offline exhibitions, videos and podcasts. Kika Yang believes that because democracy is being reshaped due to the information revolution, we can now – more than ever before – take direct action into shaping the places we like to live in.

Get to know Binke Lenhardt, partner and co-founder of CROSSBOUNDARIES, pioneering in the field of architecture for the future of education. In the frame of the CITYMAKERS Future for Living incubator project Binke researched the topic of co-housing and produced a study with co-housing projects in China and Germany , she also participated the project CROSSBOUNDARIES Kids, together with her partner DONG Hao, creating design thinking learning programs for children to become better city makers in the future.

Meet Annette Erpenstein, who is supporting CITYMAKERS with her broad expertise on all things urban. She believes that taking an active role in the co-creation of our cities – and not leaving it to the developers and investors – is the foundation of city making.

Die Neuberlinerin und Urbanistin Kika Yang hat die Plattform Urban Sports Club ausprobiert. Damit hat sie sich nicht nur fit gehalten, sondern auch die Stadt neu entdeckt.

Meet Ping Kong, who is a trained urban planner with international working experience in the field of UNESCO World Heritage. She believes in city making as a participatory approach that serves as a knowledge reservoir to nurture innovation and collaboration towards a better living environment.

Our Community-Voting has decided. These are the eight winners of the CITYMAKERS Virtual-Walk Project. Congratulations! They have one these unique souvenirs…

Katrin Risch, Projektkoordinatorin der University Alliance for Sustainability, ein Projekt des DAAD, beantwortet für STADTMACHER China – Deutschland einige Fragen zu der internationalen Initiative.

’Green Cities for our Future’ is a video based training course on low-carbon and sustainable urban development in Germany. It contains 5 course units and was produced by CITYMAKERS in 2021 for the Sino-German Urbanisation Partnership, implemented by GIZ.

Meet Jana Brokate, who is supporting our CITYMAKERS platform as digital content manager. She strongly believes in a people-centric and inclusive approach as a foundation for creating liveable cities.

Eve Nagel works as a Project Manager for the Robert Bosch Stiftung, in the program area International Understanding and Cooperation. In this interview, she reflects on the progress the CITYMAKERS network has made over the years – and adds her ideas on for where the journey could be further headed.

Meet Yimeng Wu, communication designer and founder of Studio Wu 無, who is the artistic soul behind CITYMAKERS’ visual identity. Yimeng Wu likes to discover the different historical and social layers of a city through artistic discovery. She strongly believes in the importance of making our cities more green and more resilient with regard to climate change.

Core Team Member / Digital Content

The Sino-German Urbanisation Partnership, founded in 2013 and implemented by the GIZ focuses on promoting sustainable, integrated urban development in China and Germany, aiming for the effective reduction of CO2 emissions, a more balanced distribution of urban conurbations and an improvement in the quality of life in Chinese cities.

Marlene Welzl shares with us what inspired her to create the concept of WOHNBUDDY, a matchmaking platform for elderly and young people to live together. This podcast is part of our series recorded at the CITYMAKERS Social Entrepreneurship Competence Lab.

Jonas Schorr talks with Kika Yang about his journey: From growing up in East Berlin to moving to West Germany and then step-by-step turning into a cosmopolitan social entrepreneur with his recently founded company, Urban Impact. This podcast is part of our series recorded at the CITYMAKERS Social Entrepreneurship Competence Lab.