Prof. Dr. Tanja Siems has been head of the Urban Design department at the University of Wuppertal since 2009. She studied architecture at Leibniz Universität Hannover and is co-founder and director of the Interprofessional Studio AAIS at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London. Since April 2024, she has been Vice Dean for Research at the Faculty of Architecture and Civil Engineering at the University of Wuppertal. 

The interview covers topics including the new dean's team at the Haspel Campus, interdisciplinary cooperation, collaboration with regional institutions and international exchange. The video interview from 29 May 2024 has been updated for publication in text form.
 

Professor Siems, what is particularly important to you as Vice Dean for Research?

At the Chair of Urban Design, we have carried out many applied projects for students in recent years. I would now like to apply these across faculties with students from the entire faculty and also with other BUW faculties. It is important that we also fulfil our ‘third mission’ and work together with communities and local stakeholders to initiate projects and work across disciplines. This is interesting because the faculty, with its three degree programmes in Architecture, Civil Engineering and Transport Engineering, has a wide variety of disciplines and orientations - I would like to support these as Vice Dean, as well as initiatives that are brought to us, the Dean's Office, by students.

What does the joint work in the Dean's Office look like?

As a team that works closely together, we have different roles: Christoph Grafe as Dean is in charge, we as Vice-Deans cover the areas of teaching and research and try to network these more closely within the framework of research-based teaching. We have known each other for a long time and have also worked together on various projects. As Vice Dean for Research, I am now making a new start in this team. My hope for the future is to generate research-relevant topics and concepts with the students so that these have a lasting impact on the teaching programmes. It is important that we work closely together as Vice Deans to create a scientific link between applied research and teaching. 

What collaborations and interdisciplinary projects will there be?

It is important for us to understand the applied projects in the municipality of Wuppertal and the Bergisch region as ‘testing ground’. In this context, our department, consisting of architects and urban planners, has collaborated with Prof Dr Huber and his students across disciplines in various projects within the faculty with civil engineers - for example in the context of urban infrastructure projects. It is therefore important to me to bring together several disciplines from the entire Faculty 5 in order to drive forward real projects. 

Our research is also about applied research. Of course, there are also many theoretical research projects, but it is important that it is applied and that this happens in cooperation with other cities and municipalities outside the region, especially in our region. 

An interesting concept is the Research Day for the BUW faculties, which always takes place at the beginning of September in Wuppertal. This is always an interesting concept for all students from the various disciplines of our faculty, on this day they can present their research-relevant topics. In recent years, our faculty team has presented the strategies and concepts they developed during the semester with Bachelor's and Master's students as part of our experimental urban research. We have invited experts and held interesting discussions with experts and laypeople. The student projects that were discussed there could be evaluated and revised afterwards thanks to this interesting exchange. 

This is always an important point for me: something is never just developed ‘out in the open’, but the students enter into a holistic dialogue with stakeholders and initiatives in order to be able to better advance neighbourhood-related projects and create an ‘after-effect’. 

How important is international exchange to you?

Before I started at the BUW, I was at the Architectural Association in London for a very long time - that's another reason why it's important for me to expand the international contacts. Of course, it would be easiest to work with my former London colleagues or colleagues from successful international research projects. But I think it is particularly important for students to work in a broad international research network. In this context, we usually go on excursions in the summer semester or organise summer academies. 

Two years ago, for example, we were in Athens and visited various cultural institutions there, had interesting discussions on site - in other words, we not only visited buildings and urban projects, but also entered into an exchange with planning and building institutions. Last year, we were in Lisbon with Master's students who were studying urban design with us, where the focus was on sustainable neighbourhood development in the Praça Espanha square. We were able to hold participatory workshops with interested parties and local stakeholders directly on site at the Alberto Theatre, which is located right there. 

For us, an excursion means exploring and experiencing urban contexts together, visiting interesting architectural and urban development projects and working together intensively in on-site workshops during our research trip. These excursions can be interesting not only for the students involved in the project, but for all students in the faculty. At the moment, depending on what is on offer, many architecture students come along - but in future we will be happy to have students from all disciplines join us if capacity allows. So please read our notices or check online to see what we are offering. In principle, the excursions are open to the entire faculty and we would be delighted if anyone who is interested came along on the next excursions.

If you would like to find out more about the working methods of the Chair of Urban Design, you can read about them in my latest publication, ‘Stadt vermitteln - Methoden und Werkzeuge für gemeinschaftliches Planen’, published by Birkhäuser Verlag.

I am looking forward to the next four years and hope for a lively collaboration!


About the person Prof. Dr.-Ing. Tanja Siems

Contact: dekanat.archbau[at]uni-wuppertal.de