A public lecture by Sebastian Schlecht as part of the CLL – Copenhagen Landscape Lecture Series. This lecture series is organized by the Department of Landscape Architecture and Planning – Design in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut Denmark.

The presentation examined the transformation of the landscape of the Ruhr metropolitan region from the perspective of lala.ruhr’s work. How this region transformed from a landscape of natural tranquility into a land of untamed fires. How the hooves of wild horses were replaced by the magnetism of profit. The forces of industrial creation have irrevocably transformed the area, from the depths of the coal mines to the sky. After the last decades of repair, renaturation, and redesign – driven by both desperation and love – fractures and unanswered questions remain. The need to create a livable region for over 5 million people is a constant driver of creativity in design, culture, and technology, simultaneously nurturing and neglecting the landscape – the region’s foundation.

Date: May 19, 2025
Location: University of Copenhagen, Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management

As a partner of AKNW, lala.ruhr was invited to contribute a statement to the NRW opening of the WIA Women In Architecture Festival 2025. Together with the Ruhr chapter of Architects for Future, we drafted the statement: Opportunities for a Just Urban Landscape – Feminist. Caring. Resilient!

Cities need spaces that bring people together and sustainable structures that strengthen the climate, justice, and community. We must design our cities to be more feminist and caring, while harnessing and preserving resilience!

As part of the opening of the WIA by the Ruhr Chapter, Sebastian Schlecht, founder of lala.ruhr, spoke alongside Janine Boscheinen and Yannis Kulosa from “Architects for Future” about gender discrimination in planning and construction. “When men plan spaces, they work from their own perspective.” A just city must be conceived more from a female perspective. “Compassion and care work must not be exclusively associated with women, even in urban planning and architecture.”

Date: June 17, 2025
Location: Baukunstarchiv NRW in Dortmund
Link: https://wia-festival.de/event/wia25-opening-im-westen/

Mindshift Ruhr – How can we shape the green transition of the Ruhr region together and in a fair manner? – On September 5, 2025, the third Transformation Talks (TT 3.0) took place at the Makroscope sociocultural center in Mülheim an der Ruhr. The event is organized by the graduate network of the Kompetenzfelds Metropolenforschung (KoMet) at the University Alliance Ruhr and the Young Researchers Forum of the Academy for Territorial Development (ARL) in the Leibniz Association. For the first time it was held in cooperation with the Regional Association of the Ruhr (RVR) and lala.ruhr, with additional financial support from NRW.Bank. Around 50 early-career researchers, young practitioners from the fields of planning and urban development, as well as committed individuals from the fields of culture, education, civil society, and local politics attended the event.

You can find the full report in the next issue of RaumPlanung!

We are proud to be able to contribute to the M-US-T Master’s program in Temporary Uses at the Politecnico di Milano!

How can temporary uses be integrated into the planning and transformation process, and what impact can they have? How do we view the timeframes of projects once conceived as permanent when looking back? With regard to the Ruhr region, the current engagement with the consequences of past industrial transformation as a never-ending task, serves as a benchmark that casts the question of interim use in a different light.

Drawing on the history of industry, landscape, culture, and planning, as well as the development of the RUHR and EMSCHER rivers, we discussed current ecological fragilities and the question of temporality in relation to the Anthropocene and the associated urbanization efforts. The way in which the Ruhr region has approached the task of shaping a living environment particularly since the decline of industry, and especially since the IBA Emscherpark, serves as a model in terms of projects and successes as well as processes and methods.

But even after several decades of investment in green spaces and infrastructure, the destruction that extends deep into the ground cannot be undone. The region remains a work in progress and a space for shaping the future of five million residents. The concept of understanding the region as a landscape, as Karl Ganser described it as the most important infrastructure, is and remains particularly groundbreaking today. A landscape that, under the difficult conditions of destroyed geological structures, must offer the residents of the Ruhr Metropolis a livable and ecologically high-quality home.

And even today, this is a challenge that especially in the context of climate change, requires courage, ideas, and innovation. Simply continuing as before is not an option. That is what lala.ruhr stands for. It is a laboratory for the future of a region, a laboratory for landscape and architecture, and for 5 million people. Because: The future can only be built together.

Thank you to Isabella Inti, Prof. Antonella Bruzese, Politecnico di Milano, and Sebastian Schlecht for lala.ruhr.

Link to study program

Under the theme (UN)LEARNING FOR POSSIBLE FUTURES, the FAVORITEN Festival spent 10 days exploring the challenges of the present and future through art and discourse. In Dortmund and online, participants (un)learned from and with one another.

WORKSHOP: Seeking and Finding Social Justice – An Exercise in Living Together!

If we don’t find social justice today, we won’t need to search for peace tomorrow. That’s why we’re setting out on this journey. What will we find when we adopt new perspectives and take different paths? What can we learn in concrete terms along the way? Can we repair injustices? We’ll discover and practice coexistence in downtown Dortmund and engage in dialogue with the city’s diverse inhabitants. LINK

The workshop was part of the symposium (UN)LEARNING THEATRE & CRISIS on September 8: How can we confront current crises and (un)learn from one another? On September 8, 2024, at the Museum of Art and Cultural History in Dortmund. With Yacouba Coulibaly (LABSA), Josefine Habermehl (atelier automatique), and Sebastian Schlecht (lala.ruhr) – an exercise in coexistence!

FAVORITEN is a festival for theater, dance, and performance. It has been held every two years since 1985. A festival for everyone from September 5 to 15, 2024, in Dortmund and online.

Mehr dazu unter: https://favoriten-festival.de/

In 2023, lala.ruhr served as a design and business mentor in the New European Bauhaus program, working with projects such as the “Cabra Figra” in Cascais, Portugal, designed by the firm R/C Rés do Chão.

Rés do Chão specializes in architecture, urban planning, and community engagement. The team develops urban renewal projects and enhances public and community spaces through inclusive participatory processes that foster social cohesion and strengthen trust in institutions.

In our collaborative project, we worked with current and future residents through a community design process to develop a design for a public square in the new “Cabra Figra” neighborhood in Cascais, Portugal. By creating a garden and playground together with the people who will eventually use it, we are building a space that will serve them in the future.

Through a series of workshops and surveys, design ideas were developed, refined, and discussed again with residents. Since this neighborhood on the outskirts of the city is still in the early stages of development, the process has taken on a unique dynamic that addresses the transition from a rural environment to a future urban area.

The mentoring program was designed to provide technical expertise to support the projects while ensuring adherence to the principles of the New European Bauhaus Compass, and was managed by the EIT. The New European Bauhaus program supported the participatory process, and the resulting design will be implemented by the city of Cascais in the near future.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2024, 11 AM – 4 PM

The exhibition “We Are the Future: Visions of New Communities” at the Museum Folkwang in Essen presents artistic utopias of communal living, spanning from the Lebensreform movement around 1900 to the present day. On the occasion of the exhibition, we would like to reflect on how we want to live together in the future and what fosters community. What conditions are necessary for this – architecturally, urbanistically, ecologically, and politically? Which historical and contemporary models can serve as a guide for us?

Following a guided tour of the exhibition, a workshop including a city walk took place, which was followed, after a joint lunch break, by a lecture on architectural history and a moderated expert discussion. When addressing questions about the future coexistence of humans, animals, and plants in the built environment, we placed a special focus on the Ruhr region. In addition to experts in urban planning, new forms of housing, and urban ecology, residents of exemplary projects also shared their perspectives. The event was open to everyone and thrived on the ideas and contributions of the participants.

PROGRAM

PART 1
11 a.m. | Curator-led tour of the exhibition *We Are the Future: Visions of New Communities* with Antonina Krezdorn
Meeting point: Foyer, Museum Folkwang

12 p.m. | Family workshop *The City Is a Good Home* – How Can We Live Well Together?
With Annette Bathen (die Urbanisten e. V.) and Sebastian Schlecht (lala.ruhr)
Drawing on Bruno Taut’s thesis *The Earth—A Good Home*, we will explore the city around the museum with open eyes, discovering various forms of (bio)diverse coexistence. Using found objects, sketches, photos, and notes taken along the way, we will then create a representation in the museum of the participants’ ideas about today’s interconnected communities. Finally, during the lunch break, we can discuss new forms of coexistence.
Location: Salon Folkwang

2:00 p.m. | Group lunch at Salon Folkwang

PART 2
2:30 p.m. | Forms of communal living in European architectural history
Lecture by Anna Kloke (TU Dortmund)

3:00 p.m. | Discussion: Under One Roof
Moderator: Sebastian Schlecht (lala.ruhr)
With Anna Kloke, Manuel Färber, political and economic scientist, WohnBund-beratung NRW, and Peter Keil (Biologische Station Westliches Ruhrgebiet e. V.)
Location: Salon Folkwang

Admission: free (includes food and drinks)
Registration for Part 1 at: info@museum-folkwang.essen.de

Concept: Anna Kloke, TU Dortmund; Sebastian Schlecht, lala.ruhr, in collaboration with Peter Daners, Museum Folkwang

Under the motto #BUILDINGFUTURETOGETHER, lots of different workshops for children and young people took place around the Maschinenhaus Essen as part of the third Future City Festival. For 14 days, people built, painted, sewed, danced, discussed, wrote poetry, and much more. And there was a lot of room to implement one’s own ideas and try out new things.

The festival is a project of the Theater of the Coming Generations. With the support of the Junior Uni Essen, Sebastian Schlecht and Susanne Priebs conceived and carried out a workshop for lala.ruhr at the Future City Festival by building an agora as the central place of the Future City.

Important for a city is a place of gathering, debate, exchange, presentation of ideas, music, dance, poetry, and very concretely for the parliament of the Future City. 10 children and young people built this place themselves in 4 days. From old pallets and scrap wood, an agora for the city of the future was created. An agora? A parliament? A stage? A theater? An arena? This place is all of that together!

Our agora also has a stage, but essentially forms a circle of three-tiered seating bleachers that can accommodate about 60 people. There are several entrances and the circle opens in all directions. This allows for participation or egress at any time. The stage can be used as a scene space or as a seating area to close the circle – an arena is created. The participants sit opposite each other, which creates a communication among themselves. Deliberately, there are also plants on the stage in order to draw attention to the role of nature in a city in addition to the diversity of the human participants. Thus, represented by 5 plant parliamentarians, other living beings should also get their place in the Future City.

The participants created their own place, where questions about the temporary Future City were decided during the festival. In addition, very concrete skills were learned and applied in the four-day workshop: sawing, screwing, nailing and designing – and discussing and deciding together. 10 young people between the ages of 10 and 14 used their own skills and old wooden pallettes to build a parliament for the 60 citizens of the city, selected plants, gave them a place and the stands a name and an identity. Self-made poles and flags connect the stands to each other and form another symbol of diversity and community.

We are looking forward to the Junior-Uni Essen and the Maschinenhaus Essen using this place for further actions!

Susanne Priebs and Sebastian Schlecht, August 2023

Photos: Young-Soo Chang, Alia, Sebastian Schlecht, Maschienenhaus Essen, lala.ruhr

 

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From September 10-24, 2022, the first Biennale of the Urban Landscape attracted grassroots initiatives as much as the big players in planning. lala.ruhr invited motivated people from all disciplines to the festival. 204 contributors jointly offered more than 130 events in and around the Science Park in Gelsenkirchen.

The program and the results of this eventful and intensive 1st Biennale of Urban Landscape in the Metropole Ruhr can now be found with videos, photos and reports on the Biennale website.

Thanks to all who were there, who planned, discussed, built, promoted and celebrated. We could only do that together!

For the 1st Biennale of the Urban Landscape, a 40-page magazine will be published that shows the colorful diversity of actors involved in shaping the “City of Tomorrow”. The magazine is available online now and in print at the festival.

The challenges posed by climate change to our cities and urban landscape can only be met if many people pull together. The voices of these “many” can be heard in this accompanying magazine. These are the local and international thought leaders who share innovative thoughts and insights from their work on the city of tomorrow. In sections such as “Portrait” and “Lab,” initiatives, actors, associations and best practice examples from the Ruhr region are presented. In the four-question mini-interview, the Biennale’s cooperation partners are asked about their views, while in the “Point of View” section, the content flies a little higher to put the Biennale’s themes in a broader context.

In addition, a glossary brings clarity to newer buzzwords and trendy buzzwords surrounding urban landscape. Figures, data, facts shed light on the question “How green is the industrial region?” and a pinboard spotlights some of the many initiatives, companies and activities in the Metropole Ruhr that help shape the urban landscape every day. Photographs from the Mapping the City exhibition and a slam poetry text give a taste of how the urban landscape is reflected in words and images on an artistic level.

The lala.ruhr team is delighted about the polis award: we won 3rd place in the category “Communicative Urban Design”, which honours instruments that involve people creatively and at eye level in urban development processes.

1st place went to the online public participation process for the urban open space planning competition “Am Alten Güterbahnhof” in Duisburg, 2nd place to the audio walk of the model project “Rathausblock” in Berlin. Congratulations to all nominees and award winners, also in the other categories!

The polis award of the polis Magazine for Urban Development is presented annually in various categories to projects in urban development and the real estate industry that are based on a spirit of partnership in the development of solutions for the city of the future.

The time has come: The team of lala.ruhr, commissioned by and in cooperation with the Regionalverband Ruhr (RVR), has developed a strategic-conceptual contribution as a building block for the communication offensive Green Infrastructure of the RVR in a process lasting several months. This has now been handed over to Nina Frense (Councillor for the Environment and Green Infrastructure). In essence, the aim was to develop proposals and to win over actors from different areas for cooperation.

The results of the “Festival of Landscape”, which reached over 200 participants in digital space in February, as well as interviews with innovative landscape and urban designers, people involved in non-institutional planning contexts and artistic perspectives were incorporated. Hints and approaches for goal-oriented communication and the involvement of actors in the design of green infrastructure in the Metropole Ruhr were compiled and described in the present recommendations for action, which can serve as a basis for the regional joint project of designing and communicating a sustainable urban landscape.

lala.ruhr would like to thank all those who contributed their expertise – whether as interviewees or participants in the Festival of Landscape or participants of the digital festival formats!