emergenCITY is thrilled to welcome Prof. Dr.-Ing. Hans-Joachim Linke as a further associated PI (Principal Investigator) at the research center. Linke has been Professor for Land Management at TU Darmstadt since 2002, and he heads the Chair of Spatial and Infrastructure Planning at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering since 2016. His research focuses on urban development facing climatic and demographic changes. He also deals with land readjustment instruments and the use of GIS methods in land management.

Geographically, Linke has a special connection to Southeast Asia. Here, he conducts research into supply and disposal infrastructures in rapidly growing areas and is course director of the joint Master’s degree program Sustainable Urban Development, which is offered jointly by TU Darmstadt and the Vietnamese-German University. He also holds numerous non-university memberships in various working groups and conducts review activities. This year, Linke also published the anthology Participative Energy Transformation: Innovative Digital Tools for the Social Dimension of the Energy Transition together with deputy emergenCITY coordinator Michèle Knodt.

At emergenCITY, Professor Linke will in particular contribute to the research of and around the Heinerblock. In this mission, emergenCITY is supporting the transformation of Darmstadt’s Lichtenberg district into a neighborhood with more sustainable concepts for traffic and land use. This support includes sensor boxes in the district that can measure temperature, humidity, particulate matter, noise and traffic density, among other things. Linke will be using his expertise on sustainable urban development related to the sensor boxes’ measurements here:

“Sustainable urban development also requires monitoring of the living conditions in an urban district in order to identify negative developments at an early stage and develop and implement suitable measures to prevent them. In particular, pollution (noise, air pollutants) and the effects of climate change (heat islands) reduce the quality of life in public spaces. Their systematic and targeted recording is therefore a necessary prerequisite for effective and efficient action.” \ - Prof. Hans-Joachim Linke -

emergenCITY warmthly wellcomes Prof. Linke to its team!