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Background
The digital transformation is changing our everyday living environment to a considerable extent. Current studies describe very precisely what changes can be expected in our spatial environment and in our daily organizational structures in the future. Digitalization is also creating new opportunities and challenges for the media and creative industries, especially in the context of new work and space utilization concepts. However, in order to counteract the increasing, digital individualization (e.g., through smartphones and personalized content), technologies must be designed and used in such a way that participation and cohesion in society are fundamentally promoted. These challenges play an important role, especially in future urban development projects. If an urban neighborhood is to grow together sustainably, digitally networked smart cities will continue to need social and cultural structures that involve citizens and enable them to actively shape a neighborhood together with others. One of the central research questions of this project is which content and uses will require which spatial references, spatial requirements and technologies in the future.

Research
For almost 20 years, the Essigfabrik has been a cultural venue for concerts and events in Deutz Harbor on the right bank of the Rhine in Cologne. The entire port area is currently undergoing an urban development process from a former industrial port to a residential and working quarter with a future population of around 6,900 and approximately 6,000 new jobs. Deutzer Hafen thus represents one of the largest inner-city urban development projects in a particularly early phase.

With this transformation process as an exemplary background, the project aims to rethink previous usage concepts of neighborhood and cultural centers and explore new, innovative interfaces in the direction of a communicative, creative digital economy. The Essigfabrik as an on-site cultural facility thus opens up a unique experimental space of investigation at the interface between science and civil society:

On the one hand, there is the opportunity to create a public meeting place where digital social innovations can be located, communicated and experienced in a cultural environment. On the other hand, it also offers the opportunity to test new technologies together with citizens, institutions and companies and to adapt or further develop them in line with demand - the LivingLab Essigfabrik.