Berlin is one of Europe’s major growing metropolitan areas, and with ist history as a reunified city offers the space and opportunity to do things differently. There is hardly a comparable city in the world with such a burgeoning discourse on architecture, urban planning, open urban spaces, and civic participation. The discourse is being defined not only by architects and urban planners, but by a broad-based creative scene, by numerous civic platforms and political round tables.Berlin’s new coalition government has enshrined in its political party contract a clear social agenda that includes far-reaching goals for social housing, mixed use, the reactivation of the ground floor spaces as a contribution to social, cultural interaction and local urban production, and participatory urban design processes. District administrations are reacting to property speculation in the city by buying back properties and safeguarding them. Major sites are to be developed in future together with civic initiatives. This is the backdrop for Berlin Remixing.
