Panel
The Night: An Untapped Treasure for Sustainable Urban Development
Presented by
This panel treats the night as a resource and literally as an “untapped treasure” that cities often overlook. It asks how night-time culture can be recognised in regular urban development instead of being handled as an exception. Contributions from research, night-time practice and urban development will show where contact points for bringing night-time perspectives into sustainable urbanism already exist, where they work well and where they are still missing. Together we will look at how and where synergies can be identified and developed, where further work is needed, and where the biggest barriers, supporting factors or uncertainties for finding common ground are.
The focus is on cooperation between administrations, residents and the night-time community so that recurring tensions can turn into shared solutions and both sides gain from closer exchange.
Stadt nach Acht 2025 and Fraunhofer Morgenstadt
Urban Systems After Dark: A Mutual Agenda for Nightlife and Sustainability
Fraunhofer IAO’s Department of Urban Systems Engineering, working within its Morgenstadt (City of Tomorrow) vision, is working with VibeLab and the Stadt nach Acht Conference to look at the night as a serious field for urban innovation. The shared interest is to see what could be possible when planners, researchers and night-time actors coordinate their efforts and systematically work together. Evening and night hours often allow more creativity and less rigid thinking than office routines. If this energy stays separate from sustainability agendas, cities may be missing an important driver for transition.
This partnership links cultural life after dark with sustainable urban development so that both can support each other, in Berlin and in other European cities. The aim is not to merge one sector into another, but to create a common space where night-time culture, creative economies and sustainable urban development pull in the same direction to make cities healthier and more attractive, by day and by night.
