Concerning virtual lectures on urban design: as travel will be difficult until a vaccine is available for Covid19, my suggestion is that I use my virtual lectures to take your students on virtual urban design tours of some of the places where urban design has been implemented successfully. I think we could make three virtual visits during each lecture. I would describe each place using photos, especially from Google Globe and Google Street View, but with other background information like site plans and “before” photos. Each visit would take about 15 – 20 minutes. I would ask the students what are the most important lessons they can take away from each tour to use in their own work. I will suggest a few lessons if the students don’t see them right away. Then after, let us say, ten minutes of discussion, we would move on to the next visit.

The talk shows how the long tradition of urban regeneration has changed from renewal and demolition in the heyday of post-war modernism to more careful approaches. It presents major achievements in terms of urban design and regeneration that characterize the German system of urban redevelopment grants such as socially integrative cities, the preservation of historic quarters and the restructuring of the building stock of post-war large housing estates in the suburban periphery.

The talk presents a variety of strategies that have been applied to different types of brownfields that have lost their original functions due to structural changes having taken place since the late 20th century on former military barracks, manufacturing sites and infrastructure facilities. It explores how new developments make use of the physical relics of a former period of urban development and how they contribute to satisfying the changing new needs of urban societies.

The lecture“Learning from Europe presented as the Paul Reid Lecture at UNSW in 2011 and updated annually provides an overview across major developments, paradigm changes and case studies in the European urban design scene since the 1960s and throws up questions of learning processes between superficial copying and approaches based on in-depth consideration of basic structural issues, here on the example of Australia.

The talk focuses on the development and practice of incrementalregeneration of vacant buildings and sites with the help of temporary uses and interventions.It introduces major strategies and presents examples from Germany and Europethat show how alternative development approaches can help overcome periods ofstagnation, strengthen the local identity and contribute to a renewed belief inneglected areas.

A third lecture presents a selection of German approaches to urban design and urban development processes. It looks at perspectives of Planning Culture, developments in the field of Heritage and at case studies such as the New Urban Districts between Freiburg, Tübingen, Kassel and Hamburg‘s HafenCity.