Real-World Laboratories as Catalysts for Urban Change : The Example of CASA Schützenplatz in Stuttgart

Abstract

Real-world laboratories are a new and innovative way of conducting transdisciplinary research financed by the state of Baden-Wurttemberg in Germany. The case of CASA Schutzenplatz in Stuttgart, Germany, illustrated here, positions itself within the discourse on transformative science for sustainability, arguing that in order to tackle environmental issues related to mobility, one urgently needs to gain more insights into mobility cultures. The University of Stuttgart hosts various real-world laboratories, one of them with a focus on sustainable mobility culture. A set of enabling conditions can be identified related to the experiment Parklets for Stuttgart in general. One of the major challenges both for the parklet project as a whole and for CASA Schutzenplatz in the beginning was the resistance within the public to occupying parking spaces in inner-city locations in Stuttgart: people who agreed with the proposed changes tended to remain quiet, while opponents raised their voices.