On 25 May 2025, there was the final presentation session within the course „Sustainable Urban Transformation” done by the first batch of students of the newly established Master Program “Urban and Regional Planning” at the Faculty of Land Management and Land Administration of the Royal University of Agriculture (RUA) led by Prof. Dr. Sanara Hor.
The course unit „Sustainable Urban Transformation” is being taught by Prof. Dr. Tep Makathy, Dean of Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning at Paññāsāstra University of Cambodia, and General Director of the Cambodian Institute of Urban Studies. It got developed with dedicated support from several members of the Build4People project. The course unit contains basic principles of the Build4People like the inclusion of inter- and transdisciplinary perspectives, the comprehensive understanding urban design as a transformative communicative process involving multiple stakeholders, and in general the advocacy of putting the people and sustainability into the centre of attention.
The altogether 45 participating students of the „Sustainable Urban Transformation” course presented their innovative cross-cutting ideas on how achieve a sustainable urban neighborhood planning and design of the RUA campus as a case study in a more sustainable way. This included how to implement blue-green infrastructure solutions, paying better regard to essential issues like connectivity, safety and urban mobility, air ventilation, social infrastructure, urban vibrancy, and many others.
Constructive and meaningful feedback got provided by representatives of the Build4People project, among them Dr. Anke Bloebaum, leader of the Work Package “Behaviour Change, Rolf Messerschmidt, leader of the Work Package “Sustainable Neighbourhoods” and Dr. Michael Waibel, leader of the Work Package “Sustainable Urban Transformation”.
The Build4People project would like to sincerely thank all course participants for their tremendous efforts. As first batch of master course students they can be regarded as pioneers and change agents of future transformative urban change. Our particular gratitude goes to the course unit lecturer Prof. Dr. Tep Makathy for his great leadership in guiding the students on pathways of transformative learning towards more urban sustainability and better urban quality of life in Cambodia.
Finally, it must be highlighted that for the Build4People project the infusion of its comprehensive transformative approaches into the curriculum of innovative master courses such as in the case of the Royal University of Agriculture is regarded as a valuable and lasting impact, even after the ending of the project funding.
#Build4People #BMBF_SUREregions #capacitymobilization #transformativelearning #capacitybuilding #sustainableurbantransformation #royaluniversityofagriculture