Centre for Environmental History

Usable pasts for infrastructure futures: meanings, methods, manifestations

A hybrid workshop discussing the findings, interactions and experiences of the DFG-funded research project “Past-proofing Infrastructure Futures: Usable Histories of Urban Technology Today”, held at the Humboldt University of Berlin.

This final workshop brings together researchers, project partners and  other practitioners interested in mobilising histories for liveable futures. The project team will report on how the concept of usable pasts has been interpreted and applied across a wide range of disciplines, which methods and formats were used to render Berlin’s infrastructure stories usable for contemporary challenges in collaboration with regional stakeholders and what conclusions can be drawn for future action research in this field. Practitioners and researchers involved in these activities will provide their own reflections on the experience in a panel discussion, providing critical-constructive context and insight. 

The workshop will conclude by discussing the potential for initiating an international network on usable past research and practice.

Please register by the end of August 2025 if you are considering attending, either in person or online. Tim Moss and Pauline Münch .

Ort / Place: Berlin
Zeit / Time: December 2, 2025, 13.30 to 17.30

Heritage Science an der BOKU

BOKU Forscherinnen und Forscher unterschiedlicher Disziplinen erforschen das Natur- und Kulturerbe Österreichs. Oft beschäftigen sie sich dabei mit Detailfragen. Doch erst durch interdisziplinäre Kooperationen können diese Erkenntnisse zu einem "großen Ganzen" zusammengefügt werden. Deshalb haben sich Mitarbeiterinnen und Mitarbeiter der BOKU vernetzt und sind dem österreichweiten Netzwerk Heritage Science Austria beigetreten. Im Rahmen des Heritage Science Café wurden ausgewählte Projekte von BOKU Forscher*innen präsentiert. Der Film folgt den Forschenden ins Archiv und Labor, bei Feldforschungen, auf Dachböden und ins Bergwerk und zeigt, wie der Mensch unsere Umwelt bearbeitet, gestaltet und verändert hat. Der Blick zurück hilft uns, Antworten auf Herausforderungen der Zukunft zu finden.

>zum Film

Now Online

Umwelthistorische Datenbank Österreich
Environmental History Database Austria (EHDA)

Materialien zur Umweltgeschichte Österreichs Nr. 8

In 2004, the then newly founded Centre for Environmental History (ZUG) started to systematically search and collect bibliographical data on environmental historical literature in Austria. Over the years, the data set has grown to the 3,751 entries tabulated in this volume. Until 2019, the collection then named "Environmental History Database Austria (EHDA)" was available for online searches in a custom-made environment. EHDA entries comprise works with publication dates from 1945 until 2019 and include hard-to-find grey literature and academic qualification works. Since EHDA went online about 15 years ago, digitalisation has markedly impacted scientific publishing and research. Powerful finding aids, mostly with access to full texts, full-text searches and linked searches have become available. While EHDA has been regularly updated, because committed colleagues have invested time and expertise, we have not been able to modernize the tool in terms of search possibilities and links. We have therefore taken EHDA off the Internet. This volume of the “Materialien” makes the entire content of EHDA available to all interested parties as a fully searchable pdf document with carefully preserved tags. The introduction includes search tips and explains the search possibilities we have tried to preserve or are able to now offer under the new possibilities of full-text indexing and other search engine possibilities.

>zum Materialienband (pdf, 4,35 MB)