New European Bauhaus: R&D Project Challenge

The New European Bauhaus (NEB) is an initiative launched by the EC in 2020, aiming to bring together designers, architects, engineers, artists, and other creatives to re-think our living spaces. It seeks to address societal challenges such as climate change, sustainability, and social inclusion by promoting innovative solutions that combine three key principles:

• Sustainability: Encouraging the use of sustainable materials, energy-efficient design, and circular economy principles in architecture, urban planning, and design.
• Inclusiveness: Ensuring that the built environment is accessible and inclusive for all members of society, regardless of age, ability, or background.
• Aesthetics: Emphasizing the importance of aesthetics and creativity in enhancing the quality of life and well-being of individuals and communities.

And it is implemented through three working principles:

• Participatory process: Inclusion of all groups in the civil society in the decision-making processes.
• Multi-Level engagement: Fostering exchange between peers (horizontal) and between groups in different scales (vertical) towards a common objective.
• Transdisciplinary: Collaboration between different fields of knowledge to deliver a common solution.

The NEB is gaining momentum, but the concepts and practices still need to be spread and discussed, in particular among engineers, to improve the linking with architects and social science experts.

The workshop aims to 1) raise awareness among EU-funded project partners about how they do or could include NEB practices in their R&D approach, and 2) collect feedback on what could be done better or differently to facilitate their adoption of NEB values.

Three working groups will work in two rounds with paperboards, to address the following:

1. Brainstorming on each NEB value (‘sustainable, beautiful, inclusive’):

• How do you understand this value (which concepts does it cover)?
• How do you address it in your R&I project(s)? What gaps do you see?

2. Brainstorming on each NEB working principle (‘participative, multi-level, transdisciplinary’):

• How do you understand these working principles? (Concepts covered, examples of practices)
• How is it implemented in your R&I project(s)? Or how could it be implemented, if not planned yet?

A final wrap-up will enable us to synthesize the discussion and collect feedback on the participants’ needs to go one step further with the NEB approach.

Contributing projects:

• NEBULA
• CALECHE
• CrAFt Cities
• DIGINEB
• AEGIR
• ENACT 15mC
• ARV
• syn.ikia
• NEB-STAR
• Re-Value

Session Chair:

Clémentine Coujard, DOWEL Innovation – Karine Laffont Eloire, DOWEL Innovation – Annemie Wyckmans, NTNU – Florence Kuijl, Innovawood – Yu Wang, NTNU – Kelly Riedesel, NTNU – Dirk Ahlers, NTNU