Shipyard of the daring
SUSY is place, process and landmark all in one. A container ship with laboratories, workshops, transshipment points, thinking arenas and marketplaces for visions. Where SUSY sets anchor, the launching of ideas begins. The shipyard of the daring opens up new urban areas – for work, leisure and lifestyle. The modular arrangement of the containers complements the ecology of the city and is adapted to the surrounding space. SUSY is the pulsating beacon on the coast of creativity. Not only classic start-ups, but also “grown-ups” – companies from long-established branches of trade and commerce – benefit from the creative clusters. The shipyard of the daring knows different docking maneuvers. The ship invites you to work, dance, innovate and present. SUSY is ready to board!
The city on the water
For the pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus, the course of water is always a metaphor for the ongoing process of emergence in nature and history. Water derives its tangibility as an object from the boundaries of banks and riverbeds. However, these owe their existence to the movement of the water, which constantly reshapes the banks and riverbed. Identity and permanence, according to the obvious interpretation of the metaphor, owe themselves to permanent change and the ability to understand and shape the course of time. This applies in a special – and not just metaphorical – way to cities. They often developed in the vicinity of rivers, which people knew how to use as a source of food and transportation. However, rivers also harboured dangers such as flooding, which is why people preferred to organize the centers of urban life away from the banks. Today, modern cities are struggling to find viable and effective long-term strategies for revitalizing riverside zones as urban hotspots.
Start-ups and “grown-ups”, off to new shores!
If an “urbanization” of the zones on (or in) the river is to succeed, “pioneers” are needed to develop the area as a place to live, work and spend leisure time. They are usually young, well educated, live in tight economic circumstances and are often associated with the so-called creative industries. Neighborhoods, districts or entire cities expect their entrepreneurial skills to provide new stimuli, if not economic miracles. For some time now, cities have been encouraging the emergence of creative hubs and co-working spaces, thus promoting the modernization of inner-city zones. Not only classic start-ups from the IT and creative industries, but also “grown-ups” – companies from “grown-up”, i.e. established sectors from trade and industry – benefit from the creative clusters and the associated neighborhood revitalization. The denser the network of economic relationships between different professional groups, the more sustainably successful the companies develop: the positive effects for the labor market and the attractiveness of the districts are undeniable.
A ship will come… from the location to the beach resort
The pioneering SUSY project aims to take what is already working well in the inner city to the city. The success story begins with a large container ship that docks in the city. The light-flooded and individually equipped containers are space capsules for entrepreneurial creativity, research spirit, cross-industry networking and collaboration. The ship is a pulsating organism that creates “waves” in the city. The ship as a “location” creates a new “beach resort”. People land and get stranded there in search of affordable places to live and work.
The container ship with its laboratories, workshops, transshipment points, spaces for thinking and acting arrives – to stay. And to make itself at home in the area surrounding the waterfront zone. The latter continues to develop along the lines of the ship and combines working and (affordable) living spaces. In addition to laboratories, offices, workshops and event rooms, there is also space on deck for affordable residential units that can be used by the people who work here for a certain period of time. This reduces the cost of living and gives the pioneers more scope to develop their services and businesses. If new residential options open up on the neighboring mainland, they will be happy to take advantage of them in order to leave the “cabins” to the next generation of creative professionals.
