Space for Everyone?

The event focuses on the area around Hamburg Central Station as an exemplary site of urban densification and social negotiation processes. Here, questions of housing and homelessness, mental health, addiction, migration, participation and public space converge with particular intensity. Drawing on Daniel Hopp’s exhibition Fictional Healing— for which the artist developed docu-fictional film scenes in dialogue with people affected by addiction — the conversation opens up new perspectives on urban responsibility and design.

At the heart of the event is an interdisciplinary exchange between design, social work, civil society practice, and research. The discussion explores how public space includes or excludes people — through architecture, planning, institutional structures, and social narratives. What kinds of spaces enable protection, dignity, and belonging? How can accepting, low-threshold approaches be embedded in urban design, public services and neighbourhood life? And what role do participation and migrant perspectives play in these processes?

The symposium understands itself as an open space for thinking between local practice and broader societal questions. It invites participants to reinterpret urban spaces – and to reflect together on how the city can be designed for everyone.