ANCB The Aedes Metropolitan Laboratory in Berlin is a unique interdisciplinary platform for urban discourse, exploring the interplay between the built environment, social life, technology, education and research for the future of our human habitat at an international level.
Since 1980, Aedes Architecture Forum has exhibited internationally acclaimed and pioneering architecture. Building upon this rich expertise and global network, Aedes directors Kristin Feireiss and Hans-Jürgen Commerell conceived the Aedes Network Campus Berlin (ANCB) in 2009. ANCB The Aedes Metropolitan Laboratory has since curated an internationally renowned discussion and enquiry programme, complementing Aedes Architecture Forum.
ANCB emphasises interaction and communication between stakeholders, between perspectives, between experts and the people who share the urban space. At the centre of a global network of actors and agencies, ANCB initiates interdisciplinary processes into critical issues facing the built environment. By bringing together proposals from architecture and spatial practice with societal and cultural discourses, technological research, political considerations and industry products, ANCB generates collaborations across conventional boundaries and facilitates exchange. This creates a continuous process, enabling the unique insights and visions needed to explore potentials for improved sustainable living conditions around the world.
Given the complexity of global urban challenges, traditional architecture training no longer suffices to provide adequate responses. Thus, ANCB becomes a place of alternative architecture education, upheld by collaborations with leading universities from around the world. Away from their usual academic situations, ANCB offers students and faculty the space and opportunity to experiment with new methods, approaches and collaborations.
Through its programme, ANCB contributes substantially to the discourse of space making in its changing political, societal, technological and cultural frameworks. These discussions are grounded in distinct local realities, breaking down abstract issues to a level that is conceptually tangible and negotiable. The outcomes and ideas generated have been captured in a series of ANCB publications and are documented in a growing video library. ANCB partners with international ministries, municipalities, foundations, embassies, industries, research institutes and civil society organisations to develop and curate its programme.
In times of increasing political polarisations and harshly led societal debates, ANCB believes in finding a common language to discuss information as coherent basis for building resilient communities.
The Aedes Metropolitan Laboratory offers the public a welcoming platform to commonly discuss urgent challenges of our time. It has developed a unique set of laboratory formats tailored to collective observation and exchange, acknowledging the shared responsibility for shaping our common future.
ANCB is– A Global Interdisciplinary Network established and upheld by pioneers in the fields of spatial practice, academic education, construction and product industry, governance, research and civil society. ANCB operates as an active hub at the centre of this established and growing network of global knowledge and innovation, connecting multiple perspectives to investigate responses based on exchange across sectors. As an independent institution, ANCB explores new models of partnership and forms connections between stakeholders more accustomed to competing than collaborating with each other.
– A Public Enquiry Platform to openly discuss the critical global challenges of our time that are manifest spatially and locally. ANCB's public discourse programme reframes the questions at hand by searching for a common language and offering fresh perspectives to improve our human habitat in the cities and the regions. Through its programme, ANCB continuously generates innovative ideas and provides access to a growing open-source knowledge base.
– A Test Lab for Alternative Built Environment Education for universities worldwide. Away from their usual academic situations, ANCB's studios and workshops offer students and faculty the space and opportunity to collaborate with partners from other universities, from practice, governance and industry and to experiment with new methodologies. ANCB's workshops are application-oriented test labs and investigate actual sites and typologies in Berlin harnessing the city's diverse urban fabric as a unique metropolitan laboratory in itself.
