This year, the Build4People Ecocity Transition Lab focused on Norea City, a prime urban location at Phnom Penh’s emerging waterfront which has the potential to develop into a show case of world class urban development. 

Furthermore, the SMMR-project initiated a PopUp Kiosk at Norea City to grasp the opinions of the urban dwellers. This innovative participatory approach managed by Impact Hub Phnom Penh and supported by Build4People was another milestone in the context of the Ecocity Transition Lab 2024.

All in all, the Build4People project regards the Ecocity Transition Lab as a multiple-stakeholder dialogue and as a joint learning system to jointly elaborate alternative visions to make Norea City more sustainable and to generally make Phnom Penh a more livable place. 

From the point of view of Build4People such an innovative approach and such an alliance between the corporate sector and the academia is strongly needed to achieve transformative change towards more sustainable urban development in Cambodia. In this context, Build4People deeply acknowledges the role of OCIC Group as spearhead of this and highly appreciates the supportive role of Phnom Penh City Hall.

 Together with other stakeholders such as the SMMR project team Build4People will develop comprehensive ”localised” criteria and guidelines for sustainable neighbourhood development in Phnom Penh.

#build4people #BMBF_SUREregions #phnompenh #kohnorea #noreacity #ocic #sustainableurbantransformation #sustainableneighbourhooddevelopment #sustainablebuilding #tod #transitorienteddevelopment#sustainablemobility #publicparticipation #livinglab  

During the meeting, the Build4People representative Dr. Michael Waibel together with Build4People Work Package “Behaviour Change” members Dr. Anke Blöbaum and Andreas Deuß discussed potential joint activities, particularly in regard of the upcoming Build4People Implementation phase.

As the international English-based program “Smart City Planning Management” has recently been established at this faculty, Build4People sees potential to connect the program with the envisaged increasing application of digital urban planning tools during Implementation phase from 2025-2027.

During the meeting, the Build4People representative Dr. Michael Waibel together with Build4People Work Package “Behaviour Change” members Dr. Anke Blöbaum and Andreas Deuß discussed how to follow-up on the joint successful cooperation in the context of the Build4People Ecocity Transition Lab 2023, particularly in regard of the upcoming Build4People Implementation phase from 2025-2027.

Topics discussed, among others, were how to further support PHG on its pathway to become more sustainable and to provide a more inclusive and livable urban environment to its residents within their existing compounds, e.g. by strengthening the capacities and empowerment among the staff of PHG through joint cooperation and trainer-the-trainer sessions, and from a city-level perspective how to strengthen the connectivity of the existing Borey Peng Huoth compound to surrounding areas in cooperation with Phnom Penh Capital Hall.

Another major topic discussed was how to test the B4P Citizen Science APP as innovative tool of diagnosis of the urban built environment and of public participation. More specifically, it was proposed to apply the B4P Citizen Science APP within the PH residential compounds to evaluate 1) the urban quality of life of the built environment 2) check on different gender perspectives 3) check on different age perspectives 4) check on potentials to improve accessibility for handicapped people with the overall goal to foster inclusive transformation.

Finally, we discussed Build4People’s potential contributions to CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility)-Reporting and ESG (Environmental Social Governance) criteria in the case of PHG.

The meeting ended with a guided tour through the new residential compounds of Borey Peng Huoth.

All in all, it has been a very fruitful and promising exchange and the whole Build4People team is very much looking forward to further joint collaboration.

This event was the first opportunity for the Cambodia research partners to get to know all projects of the SURE family and all of its team members. From the side of the largest university of Cambodia, the Royal University of Phnom Penh (RUPP), four representatives took part: Dr. Sok Serey from the Research Department, Dr. Sothun Nop and Dr. Nydia Chhinh, both from the Department of Development Studies, and Bunleng Se, PhD candidate at the Department of Geography. The Royal University of Agriculture got represented by Dr. Sanara Hor, Dean of the Faculty of Land Management and Land Administration, and Build4People Work Package “Urban Green Infrastructures” partner of Prof. Jan-Peter Mund. Prof. Dr. Virak Han from the Institute of Technology of Cambodia (ITC) took part as research partner from Build4People Work Package “Sustainable Building”, which was also represented by Christina Karagianna from the Technical School of Applied Sciences Lübeck.

Last but not least Prof. Dr. Tep Makathy joined the Status Seminar as project management partner of the consortium lead from Hamburg University and as research partner of Build4People Work Package “Sustainable Neighbourhoods”.

For the whole Build4People team it was a great experience to listen to the vivid presentations such as from the keynote speakers.

But maybe even more important was to join the more horizontal formats like the World Café discussion rounds, or the manifold informal exchange during the lunch and coffee breaks.

The participation at this meaningful event has truly enriched our perspectives, and we are particularly grateful to the SURE Facilitation and Synthesis project for their dedicated organizational efforts.

Reel summaries of the SURE Status Seminar can be found at the Build4People Instagram account:

The paper introduces the Build4People Sustainable Building Arena (SBA), a transition governance approach that adapts Northern transition management approaches to the Cambodian context. It proposes the creation of informal institutions for change agents that are co-creative and safe spaces for change agents.

Members of the Build4People Work Package #2 “Sustainable Building” and of the Build4People Work Package #6 “Sustainable Urban Transformation”, among others Dr Sothun Nop from Royal University of Phnom Penh (RUPP), have jointly contributed to this significant achievement.

This is the bibliographic information on the conference paper:
Jayaweera, R., Nop, S., Karagianni, C., Waibel, M. and Schwede, D. (2022). Sustainable building arenas: Constructing a governance framework for a sustainability transition in Cambodia’s urban built environment. IOP Conf. Ser.: Earth Environ. Sci. 1078 012084.

Curator of the exhibition has been the team of Work Package #3 “Sustainable Neighbourhoods” EMP (Eble Messerschmidt & Partner) with support from the overall coordination at Hamburg University. Contributions to this trans-disciplinary effort have been made by all Work Packages of the Build4People project.

Download Build4People Exhibition as a pdf-file (18.6 MB)

More information on the Build4People Ecocity Transition Lab

Project manager Dr Michael Waibel presented the project approach and gave an update on recent activities, including recent research visits and bi-lateral discussions with the Cambodian partners. The local project coordinator Dr Susanne Bodach informed the researchers on the latest developments in Cambodia and about relevant stakeholders in Phnom Penh.

The research partners furthermore discussed future research activities, data management and a joint publication strategy.

Download Agenda (PDF-File)

Further impressions from our workshop: