Creating NEBourhoods together

EU project "Creating NEBourhoods together": Munich-Neuperlach as a test field for urban innovation landscapes

With the EU project "Creating NEBourhoods together", the City of Munich aims to transform the Neuperlach district into a resilient urban innovation landscape and thus herald the future of modern urban renewal and development in the spirit of the New European Bauhaus.

With a population of around 65,000, the Neuperlach district of Munich is the largest post-war urban expansion area in Germany. Today, this city district faces many social, city planning and construction challenges. With a portfolio of commercial and residential buildings in need of renovation and open spaces without a current purpose, Neuperlach is typical of many cities in Europe and faces challenges such as above-average unemployment. Neuperlach also has numerous advantages, for example, social cohesion in a multicultural population, large green spaces, separate paths for pedestrians and cyclists, and office buildings that can be revived.

Therefore, Neuperlach as a district is an ideal starting point for renewal in the spirit of New European Bauhaus: beautiful – sustainable – together.

The development of Munich-Neuperlach in accordance with the European Green Deal should be achieved through the so-called NEB actions. These actions are designed for socially and environmentally compatible living and working in the city. Two processes are at the heart of the NEB actions: co-creation as an innovative process that involves culture and creative people as well as promoting and fostering entrepreneurship. Both processes are designed with and for the people and stakeholders of this city district.  

The ten action topics below cover very diverse areas of city development and citizens’ life. They range from energy communities and the improvement of public space to the interaction between people and nature covering fields such as nutrition, cultural open spaces, and multifunctional mobility spaces:

• Animal-aided Design: Integration of wildlife into architecture, open space and urban  planning
• Ecolopes: Design of building casings that take into account the needs of humans, plants, animals and beneficial micro-organisms to encourage biodiversity in the city
• Public Power: Shading structure strategies for heat islands in the city to create healthy temperatures in public
• Circular Neuperlach: Establishing a circular economy roadmap for commercial buildings, from the use of materials to room utilization and usage of district quarters
• Redesigning Housing Structures: Social, economic and energy upgrade and spatial redesign of large residential housing that are in need of renovation
• Rethinking the Urban Office Complex as an Urban Element: Redesign and refurbishment of privately owned office buildings as productive, mixed-use open public spaces
• Energy Communities: Organizing  and implementing energy sources and supply in the neighbourhood
• Prototyping Mobility NEBourhoods: Research on mobility infrastructure supported by digital twin data of the district
• Neuperlach eats/is green: Linking nutrition and edible gardening in the neighbourhood
• PEARL: Creating cultural places for young people in Neuperlach: developing temporary and permanent youth culture spaces together

All together, these 10 actions should improve the quality of life, provide a better daily life and contribute to environmental protection.

NEBourhoods aims to make a significant contribution to the objectives of the New European Bauhaus and the EU Green Deal. Further synergies result from Munich’s successful promotion as one of the “100 climate-neutral and intelligent cities by 2030”.

"They will show what the future can look like and bring the European Green Deal into our daily lives and our living spaces. These projects will become the starting point for a European and global network of New European Bauhaus projects," said EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

NEBourhoods is one of the first lighthouse projects across Europe selected by the European Commission for the New European Bauhaus initiative. Further information about the projects can be found here and here.

BayFOR@work

"BayFOR supported us intensively for many months in preparing the concept and submitting the application according to current EU regulations. BayFOR's advice was not only characterised by excellent cooperation, but was also very informative and helpful for me as coordinator and for all the other consortium partners. This successful "New European Bauhaus" project with more than 10 Bavarian partners, including BayFOR, is of great importance for the city of Munich as an EU lighthouse project."

Dr Sylvia Pintarits, City of Munich

The New European Bauhaus (NEB)

The New European Bauhaus (NEB) aims to create a bridge between art, culture and education and science and technology. Horizon Europe, the EU’s current framework programme for research and innovation, has a key role to play in driving new ideas, prototypes and products, as research and innovation are essential elements of the design, implementation and dissemination of NEB. The call for tenders, to which the NEBourhoods consortium had applied, was one of the 'missions’ of Horizon Europe’s 2021-2022 work programme. Further information can be found here.