New working approaches and tools are needed to understand and support the rural-urban region. Emerging interdependencies around newer-generation economic, environmental and recreational activities in the rural region belie a functioning that is increasingly independent of the city ‘proper’. This, combined with often dramatic transformations underway in the ‘countryside’ renders invalid the concept of the region as the supportive hinterland for the city. The ANCB programme is about accurately depicting the rural region by uncovering the symbiotic connections that tie the places together and to the city. It does so by making explicit the spatial and functional workings of these networks, ties and connections. From this depiction is derived a catalogue of bespoke typologies of building, space and mobility-modus and a generation of new strategies that both support and harness the latent potential of the places and connections within the region.

The programme developed from the 2011/12 ANCB discussion series Design & Politics: The Next Phase. A key outcome of this series was the recommendation to consider the urban region rather than merely the urban core. Commencing with a design studio in November 2012, the programme continued throughout 2013 with a preliminary overview study now complete. ANCB design studios kick-started fieldwork and indicative design-based proposals for a case study area, which were developed in semester-long projects by the participating universities. The results will shortly be made available as resource material.

The current programme phase is focused predominantly on the collection, generation and analysis of data that profiles the spatial interdependencies of the same case study - Ortsgemeinde Erkner-Rüdersdorf- Woltersdorf- Schöneiche, located to the east of Berlin.