Spaces & Flows: Ninth International Conference on Urban and ExtraUrban Studies

Abstract

In times of increasing globalization and digitalization, new challenges rise for knowledge-based activities. Previous scientific research in the field of relational economic geography has focused on enterprises, networks and economical actors. However, recent activities carried out by globally active enterprises like Apple Inc. or Deutsche Bank – e.g. creating “fancy” headquarters or install creative rooms – indicate that also the physical environment plays a role in processes of knowledge generation. We advance the hypothesis, that not only people and networks are important for the process of knowledge creation, but also the quality of place is a necessary condition to trigger these communication processes and to break up habitual thinking structures. We presume that different problems and questions need different material places to be solved more easily. Therefore, the “fancy” design and architecture of the physical place influence interaction processes and lead to new ideas for difficult or ill-defined problems. On the basis of an ethnographic guideline-based expert study (mainly covering the AppHaus in Heidelberg, but also including other examples) this paper discusses how these places become “anchors in space” for local innovation processes and development and which role these material places do play in the interactive process of knowledge creation and creativity.