The Urban Design Hackathon is a 24h online workshop for international students from European architecture schools. 

Over its past three editions, we tested and successfully established a new format of digital teaching and international collaboration – despite the pandemic and without environmentally harmful air miles. Supported by technically advanced tools, the virtual room became a common ground for learning and intercultural exchange for students and academics from ten institutions across Europe. 

Following the motto ‘Reanimate the dinosaur’, students are invited to develop future scenarios for obsolete structures in the urban environment. It is a novel approach, where the ugly and outdated buildings are not simply erased but valued for their grey energy and embraced as catalysts of a resilient and sustainable further development of our cities.  

The object of the first Hackathon was the soon-to-be-closed Karstadt department store building in the lively district of Wedding, Berlin. In the second edition, students were asked to propose an urban transformation for Charité’s former animal testing laboratory, also known as “Mäusebunker.” Closing the Berlin trilogy, our third dinosaur was the parking garage of the now at a standstill world-famous International Congress Center – ICC Berlin.

The Urban Design Hackathon is an ongoing experimental project: as the zeitgeist changes, so does the format. After two years of online teaching, on its third edition, the Hackathon went hybrid, testing the contrast of a successive form, an online phase followed by a presential workshop in March 2022, the Bauhaus Spring School.