Resiliente Environments

BAMFIB

Development of Recyclable Bamboo Fiber Composites Using Bio-Based Binders and Advanced Processing Technologies

BAMFIB develops next-generation bamboo fibre composites using bio-based binders including but not limited to mycelium and chitosan as sustainable alternatives to conventional materials. The project combines material development, process engineering, and circular design to enable recyclable, low-emission composites for construction and industrial applications. Bamboo fibres are optimized and combined with novel binders, while manufacturing is adapted through fibre injection moulding (FIM). Mechanical performance, durability, and environmental impact are evaluated to ensure technical feasibility and scalability.

Engineered bamboo composite. ©FCL Singapore ETH Center

Facts

Project partners

KIT Karlsruhe Institute of Technology,  Fiber Engineering GmbH (Germany),  Widuz Pte Ltd (Singapore).

Project website

C2C-Bridge

Country to City Bridge

C2C Bridge aims to explore possibilities for attractive alternatives to the private car as a means of commuter transport with an individualized public transport service. One component of the solution is autonomous vehicle concepts as on-demand transport that offer space for four people and luggage. They take users to their destination after a maximum of one change at mobility hubs or enable them to change to other means of transport there. The mobility hubs should make transfers as comfortable as possible. Research is being carried out into how an optimal combination of the new transport service and traditional public transport and their transitions can be designed.

Visualization. ©HKA

Facts

Project partners

Institutes of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e. V. (ICT, ISI, IOSB), Research Center for Information Technology (FZI), Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences – Technology and Economics (HKA), Baden-Württemberg Institute for Sustainable Mobility (BWIM), Albtal-Verkehrs-Gesellschaft mbH (AVG).

Project website

Cape Reviso

Cyclist And PEdestrians on REal and VIrtual Shared rOads

Urban transport spaces are dynamic and shaped by competing interests, making planning complex. This project develops a simulation-based planning and decision-support tool to improve urban mobility design. Travel mode choice depends not only on cost and time but also on perceived comfort and stress, with conflicts discouraging walking and cycling. Due to limited accident data, many hazardous locations remain undetected. The project combines machine learning and human sensor data to identify critical situations and tests future infrastructure scenarios in virtual reality and Living Labs, enabling better design of intersections and shared spaces to enhance safety and user experience.

Facts

Project partners

High-Performance Computing Center Stuttgart HLRS.

Project website

Chlorine Dreams

The Architecture of Bathing

The architecture of bathing has played a central role in many global cultures, from Aztec temazcales and Jewish mikvot to gay saunas and Olympic pools. Communal bathing fosters social bonds and inter-group mixing; however, it can often exclude women, the poor, the disabled, and people of colour. And today, social bathing is under threat around the world, thanks to reduced public funding, the energy crisis and declining use. This monograph traces the history of social bathing in seven chapters on the following themes: spirituality, health, sport, leisure, race, gender and sexuality. Each chapter includes inspiring counter-examples that promote integration and buck decline.

Pacaembu Stadium Swimming Pool, São Paulo, 2025. ©Tom Wilkinson

Facts

ESSEM

Emotion Perception for (E-)Bicycle Safety and Mobility Comfort

The ESSEM project investigates how emotional sensing technologies can improve safety and comfort in (e-)cycling. By collecting biostatistical data such as heart rate, skin conductance, and temperature via wearable devices, researchers identify stress moments experienced by cyclists in urban environments. These data are combined with contextual factors like infrastructure quality, traffic conditions, and environmental influences. Advanced analytical methods, including neural networks, enable the detection of patterns linking stress to specific situations. The findings support evidence-based improvements in cycling infrastructure, routing solutions, and mobility planning, contributing to safer, more attractive, and sustainable urban transportation systems.

Road network and detected moments of stress in Osnabrück.

Facts

Project partners

Universität Stuttgart, Paris Lodron Universität Salzburg, Stadt Osnabrück, Allgemeiner Deutscher Fahrrad-Club e. V. Berlin, OutdoorActive GmbH Immenstadt.

Project website

HOME I

Wood–Mycelium Composite Construction for CO_₂-Neutral and Circular Interior Systems

The HOME project develops a wood–mycelium composite construction system for CO_₂-neutral and circular interior applications, particularly for office spaces and building refurbishment. It combines additive manufacturing of timber lattice structures with fungal mycelium as a natural binder to create lightweight, sound-absorbing bio-composites. Mechanical, acoustic, and durability properties are experimentally characterized and supported by simulation and parametric design tools. The project also evaluates life cycle performance and develops circular value chains, demonstrating the feasibility of scalable, low-carbon interior building systems.

Mycelium-grown composite prototype on a 3D wood lattice structure. ©Experimental and Digital Design, University of Kassel

Facts

Project partners

University of Kassel (Project Lead), KIT Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, ARUP Germany.

Project website

Living Archive

Space Taken Informality, Emancipation and the Right to the City in Post-Socialist Tbilisi

This research analyses informal spatial practices in Gldani, a major post-Soviet housing estate in Tbilisi, Georgia. It explores how the collapse of socialist planning led to widespread DIY architectural modifications, including balcony extensions, self-built structures, and unauthorised occupations. Rather than viewing these as urban disorder, the study frames them as expressions of spatial self-determination. Drawing on Lefebvre's right to the city and theories of informality, it documents architectural typologies that emerged from crisis, presenting informality as a means of emancipation and survival during post-socialist urban transformation.

Facts

Modernity’s Waste Spaces

Obsolescence and Reuse in Classical Modernism

Architectural modernism is frequently criticized for contributing to ecological crisis (and often with justification); however, several pioneering modernists were in fact deeply concerned with questions of waste and obsolescence in a spatial context. Drawing on insights from human geography, art history and urban studies, this monographic prehistory of our present catastrophe includes chapters on Benjamin’s concept of the architectural outmoded, Schwitters’ use of waste materials, Sohn-Rethel’s work on kaputt technology in Naples, and, referring to Zygmunt Bauman’s notion of modernity’s ‘wasted lives’, the place of servants within the modernist home.

VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn (2024). ©Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, Photo: Tim Nighswander/Imaging4Art

Facts

RE-HAB

Reshaping Education for a Social & Sustainable Habitat

The primary goal of RE-HAB is to upskill young future professionals in the European habitat sector with competencies in circular economy principles and social innovation. The project aims to bridge the environmental and social skills gap by providing accessible training resources, empowering the next generation of workers to lead the transition towards Society 5.0.

Facts

Project partners

Centro Tecnológico del Mueble Y la Madera (Spain), SHINE2Europe (Portugal), FUNDACJA PARASOL (Poland), Kulturstiftung 1984 (Cyprus).

Project website

Sustainable and Integrated People-Centric Solutions for Building Decarbonisation and Circularity

SIRCULAR is committed to creating digital tools, technological solutions, and services to drive the decarbonisation of the built environment. The project aims to develop a methodology for assessing the circularity of buildings, which will evaluate the impact of new construction technologies in demonstration projects. These solutions will be accessible to both non-experts and construction professionals, allowing for easier access to information on decarbonisation and tools to improve circularity.

Facts

Project partners

Consortium of 22 partners from six European countries, coordinated by RINA-C, including universities, SMEs, NGOs and industry partners such as CERTH, CARTIF, ICLEI, Steinbeis Europa Zentrum, ITeC, UPC, TalTech, KIT, ZRS Architekten, Hormipresa, Balti Vara, GNE Finance, ICP, Rimond and STRESS.

Project website

SubSi Zurich

Assessment of Subjective Road Safety and Its Consideration in Road Safety Practice

Current road safety practice relies on objective indicators such as accident statistics, while subjective safety—users’ personal feeling of safety—is rarely considered. Yet objective and subjective safety interact in complex, non linear ways; some users feel unsafe even when accidents decline. This project analyses subjective safety across user groups and creates a repeatable method to measure it. After a literature review, two surveys—a GIS questionnaire and a stated preference questionnaire—will identify situations perceived as safe or unsafe. Findings will be validated with physiological stress data to locate risk hotspots and test design measures that improve perceived safety for each user type. The results will produce a methodology to integrate subjective safety into the ISSI infrastructure safety tools, in partnership with IRAP, OST Eastern Switzerland University of Applied Sciences.

Stress measurements among various road users (car, bicycle, pedestrian) in Zurich.

Facts

Project partners

Eastern Switzerland University of Applied Sciences (OST).

Project website