School VI Planning - Building - Environment

© Hans-Georg Esch

At School VI, architects and construction engineers, city and regional planners, landscape architects and environmental planners, geoengineers, social scientists, geodesists and ecologists are actively involved in research and teaching endeavors. The School can thus offer an outstanding range of planning, environmental and construction-oriented sciences which is exceptional, even at an international level.

The Department of Architecture feels especially obligated to help transform future living environments. This concerns architecture’s role in shaping environments and contributing to culture at large, but also addresses the massive consumption of resources caused by construction measures and the resulting consequences for the environment. Furthermore, architects must make a contribution to ensuring humane housing conditions in the countries of the South. Areas of focus in training, teaching and professional development include: structural engineering, climate friendly and sustainable construction; urban renewal, preservation of historical buildings and monuments and construction research. The fields of urban development, metropolis research, housing as well as location and project development, urban and regional economies and real estate cooperate closely with the planning sciences.

The "Department of Urban and Regional Planning" is one of the most important schools of planning in Germany. It takes full advantage of the fact that Berlin is the top location in Germany for planning research and planning consultancy activities. Feasibility studies figure prominently in the profile of our Urban and Regional Planning program.

As an autonomous research field the subject of Urban Ecology has its origins at the TU Berlin. The Department of Ecology covers a wide spectrum of biotic (plant and animal world) and abiotic (earth, water, climate, waste materials) components of the ecosystem, both in the terrestrial and aquatic domains. A wide range of disciplines – in addition to networking with the planning sciences, engineering sciences and sustainability-oriented areas of expertise – are distinguishing characteristics of the Department of Ecology at the TU Berlin.

Central to the activity of the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning is the design, configuration and environmentally sustainable planning for unused space and landscapes. In this connection, contemporary strategies for the planning of undeveloped areas and future landscape development are a factor, as is interaction with the instruments of landscape planning and environmental auditing. Social and economic aspects also need to be examined, insofar as they impact sustainable development. Satellite data and geo-information systems support these lines of research.

The Department of Sociology dovetails neatly with individual engineering sciences offered at the TU Berlin; it also addresses innovation and mobility research issues in close cooperation with the Center for Technology and Society. Our "sociology of technology" program, the only one of its kind in Germany, has opened up a whole new scientific discipline.

As the focus of its training and research efforts, the Department of Civil Engineering has introduced a hitherto unique approach to designing and manufacturing using a wide range of materials. These include specialty areas in design and constructing, solid structures, metal construction and lightweight construction as well as composite structures. Additional areas of research emphasis include construction technology, building diagnostics, construction and soil dynamics as well as developing and financing of infrastructure for urban areas.

In the applied geosciences, the spectrum of challenges in terms of sustainable geo-resource management ranges from the exploration, evaluation and use of space, both above and below ground, to materials research and environmental research. In the fields of geodesy and geo-computer sciences, the latest satellite-assisted analytical methods are employed in earth system research and planetary sciences research, in precision navigation and geopositioning, as well as in the creation of coordinate reference systems for geographic information systems (GIS).

The School’s syllabus is currently being adapted to the Bachelor/Master degree program. The School has utilized the reform procedure to broaden it focus on the one hand, while developing new, independent Masters programs on the other. One example of this is our Masters in Urban Design, Geodesy and Geoinformation Sciences and Urban Ecology Sciences, the only one of its kind in Germany. The growing proportion of lectures given in the English language and possibility of obtaining a joint degree is helping to drive the internationalization of our teaching approach.

School VI has firmly established itself as a provider of continuing university education. It offers instruction in the fields of historic monument restoration, stage design, real estate management and urban management.