Urban Up Launches “Expedition: Space Station” @Wupperinst Most companies, organisations, entrepreneurs, and politicians work in ‘regular’ office spaces situated in ‘regular’ buildings. What would happen if they had an opportunity to switch their workplace to a shipping container for a few weeks? This is now a reality with the launch of the Expedition: Space Station (“Expedition: Raumstation”) in Utopiastadt, Wuppertal – a collaboration with Utopiastadt. Utopiastadt has been offering workspaces to various enterprises such as businesses and voluntary work in the Wuppertal Nordbahntrasse. Between July and October, 2019 organisations have the opportunity to test their business ideas in the newly set up “Expedition: Space Station” shipping containers. These containers are an open laboratory module which can be rented for 1 Euro for a period of up to four weeks. The “Expedition: Space Station” is being implemented by the Utopiastadt as a practical partner within the framework of Urban Up, a joint project of the Wuppertal Institute, the University of Wuppertal and the CSCP. The project is located at TransZent (the Centre for Transformation Research and Sustainability) which was founded by the Wuppertal Institute and the University of Wuppertal. The shipping containers are located in the Nordbahntrasse, which is Wuppertals bike highway in a former train station. Utopiastadt also has a repair café, free bike rental, open workshop space, community garden, co-working space, a café as well as a concert location with a lot of free space surrounding it. Here, everything is shared and everyone is welcome to be part of it. This summer a new area outside the former train station, Mirker Bahnhof, is being used to provide space to several actors and initiatives. Shipping containers will be the temporary home for a free cargo bike rental, an aquaponics farm, a caterer and others. Out of these, two containers are rented by Urban Up and can be used by organisations and companies who want to create real impact in this unique environment and experiment with their way of doing business and work. Those interested in using this setting as a testing bed for new ideas can apply to work in these containers. Additional information about the application process can be found here. The project is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) as a junior research group within the framework of social-ecological research. Please contact Alexandra Kessler for more information.