Lab Talk Series

MOBILISING THE PERIPHERY

A collaboration between ANCB – Schindler Transit Management Group project on contemporary urban peripheries worldwide

Date: 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018

Place: ANCB The Aedes Metropolitan Laboratory, Christinenstr. 18–19, 10119 Berlin

Introduction

Urban peripheries – such as informal cities, barrios and suburbs – are typically perceived to present only great challenges. With the project Mobilising the Periphery, ANCB and the Schindler Transit Management Group set out to stimulate new ways of thinking, to question the given preconditions of current development and to initiate a discourse on urban realities at the periphery. The aim of the project is to cross-connect new approaches and insights within a widening network and to archive and share best-practice examples with a global audience, thus creating a new public community for urban peripheries worldwide.
The subject is explored and interpreted from a range of perspectives prevalent in cities today, including examples of physical periphery – on the edge of the city (ghettos, suburbs, segregated housing estates), unregulated periphery – outside of the formal masterplan (slums, barrios, informal cities), and social periphery – on the margins of society (homeless, disabled, elderly, ethnic minorities).

Four types of periphery, exemplified by four case studies – Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, China and Europe – in connection with participation and social justice are discussed.