Ageing Smart – Designing Spaces Intelligently

The topic Ageing Smart of the university priority area “Region and City” addresses social challenges in the tense environment of demographic change and digitalisation.This five-year joint project specifically integrates the expertise of computer science and mathematics alongside the spatial sciences of the TUK in order to support municipalities in the sustainable design of spaces with regard to the transition of baby boomers into retirement with the help of a novel decision support system.

The Carl Zeiss Foundation is funding the research project "Ageing Smart - Designing Spaces Intelligently" at the University of Kaiserslautern (TUK) with approx. 4.3 million euros. The project addresses the baby boomers born between 1955 and 1969. As they successively enter retirement age, municipalities are challenged to create age-appropriate residential locations and supply structures. In an integrated approach, the researchers are therefore bringing together spatial planning, infrastructural and supply-side approaches from the perspective of the "baby boomers" and the municipalities for the first time.The aim is to develop a data-based system that serves as a decision-making aid for public stakeholders in their planning processes.

This interdisciplinary research project initially focuses on three concise fields of investigation: Residential locations and closely related requirements for opportunities in the residential environment and mobility, behaviour with regard to leisure and recreational activities, and the provision of medical and related health infrastructures and services.

The TUK project is integrated into the university's priority area "Region and City" (spokeswoman Prof. Dr.-Ing. Karina Pallagst). The following departments at the TUK are contributing their expertise to the coordinated project: from the Faculty of Spatial and Environmental Planning, the departments and chairs of Digitisation, Visualisation and Monitoring (JProf. Dr.-Ing. Martin Berchtold), Physical Geography (Prof. Dr. Sascha Henninger), Municipal Economics (Prof. Dr. Martin Junkernheinrich), Urban Planning (Prof. Dr.-Ing. Detlef Kurth), International Planning Systems (Prof. Dr.- Ing. Ing. Karina Pallagst), Urban Sociology (Prof. Dr. Annette Spellerberg) and Regional Development and Spatial Planning (Prof. Dr. Gabi Troeger-Weiß), as well as the Optimisation working group from the Faculty of Mathematics (Prof. Dr. Stefan Ruzika), the chairs of Knowledge-Based Systems and Software Engineering from the Faculty of Computer Science (Prof. Dr. Prof. h.c. Andreas Dengel and Prof. Dr.-Ing. Peter Liggesmeyer). The German Centre for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) and the Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering (IESE) also contribute to the research.

Contact

Prof. Karina M. Pallagst

M.Sc. Jonas Pauly