Understanding Urban-Rural Resource Cycles. From Berlin-Brandenburg to Eastern China
Book talk with Anke Hagemann, Gaoli Xiao, David Bauer, Santiago Martínez Murillo (Habitat Unit, TU Berlin), Doris Kleilein (JOVIS), and discussion guests (tba)
Rural land is becoming a major arena for sustainable urban transformation – think of regional supplies with renewable energy, food or bio-based construction materials. But its relationship with cities needs to be fully understood, redefined in a planetary perspective and included in future planning. Two new books edited by members of Habitat Unit, TU Berlin, and published with JOVIS, look at the issue from different angles.
Urban-Rural Assembly: A Handbook for Co-Visioning Interconnected Regions
Anke Hagemann and Ava Lynam, Gaoli Xiao, Wolfgang Wende, Li Fan, Sigrun Langner, Maria Frölich-Kulik, Laura Henneke, Lukas Pappert (eds.)
Jovis 2024
As our planet is becoming increasingly urbanized, the ways we think about cities and urbanism are also being fundamentally reconfigured. However, current urban planning approaches often remain stuck in urban-rural dualisms that do not reflect the multilayered interrelationships and material flows of goods and people in these increasingly interconnected urban-rural regions. The Urban-Rural Assembly handbook brings together reflections and best practices using the example of dynamically transforming living labs in an urban-rural region in eastern China. With the help of innovative methods and analytical concepts, this region is being captured from multiple perspectives in order to identify important starting points for a sustainable transformation of wider territories. The book provides practical guidance on how to collaboratively investigate, envision, and plan today’s urban-rural regions worldwide. It is an important result of the BMBF-funded Sino-German research project Urban-Rural Assembly.
Power, Flows, and Transformation. Portraits of Berlin-Brandenburg Energy Spaces
David Bauer, Santiago Martínez Murillo, Philipp Misselwitz, Yuliya Navatskaya, Joseph Smithard (eds.)
Jovis 2025
Energy is everywhere—yet the vast infrastructural networks that power our daily lives remain largely invisible. Accounting for three-quarters of global greenhouse gas emissions, energy systems stand at the center of our climate crisis and the transformations needed to address it. This book examines energy supply as a spatial and material phenomenon, exploring the Berlin-Brandenburg capital region through maps, drawings, texts, and photographs. It reveals the hidden geographies connecting energy production and consumption across scales—from household transformations to citywide configurations and regional supply networks. Tracing the flow of fossil and renewable energy carriers through territories, towns, and streets, Power, Flows, and Transformation offers a multi-layered portrait of our energy landscapes past, present, and future. The book arose from the BB2040 research project, which is funded by the Robert Bosch Stiftung.