On 06 October 2022, the Build4People Work Package #6 “Sustainable Urban Transformation” and their research partners from the Royal University of Phnom Penh (RUPP) held a productive Science Workshop at the Cambodia-Korea Cooperation Center. The aim of the workshop was to collaboratively advance the problem framings and visions for Phnom Penh by encouraging the participants to co-create innovations towards urban sustainability. Further, the workshop served to introduce the empirical research of WP#6.
The day began with an introduction to the agenda by Dr Sothun Nop (RUPP), followed by greeting words from the Build4People consortium leader Dr Michael Waibel, Dr Katharina Borgmann (HafenCity University Hamburg, SURE Facilitation & Synthesis Research Project), and Dr Sok Vanny (Vice-President of RUPP).
The following parts of the workshop were focused on the research of WP#6, with Ravi Jayaweera (Research Associate WP#6) introducing the current research results concerning the characterization of the socio-technical system of the building sector in Phnom Penh and Dr Sothun Nop presenting the concept and results of the Sustainable Building Arena (SBA), which took place last spring. To the participants delight he held his presentation in Khmer language.
Finally, the participants got to work with the aforementioned SBA results. Together, they prioritized the presented visions and challenges for Phnom Penh and actively discussed ways to ‘bridge the gap’. This part of the workshop was kindly facilitated by Dr Sothun Nop, Dr Seak Sophat (RUPP), Nuria Roig (Research Associate WP#3 “Sustainable Neighborhoods”), and Alina Hoeck (Student Assistant of Build4People at Hamburg University).