The project "Sustainable urban transformation in historic districts in Chiang Mai, Thailand", funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), started with a kick-off meeting in Chiang Mai in the week from 22 to 26 July 2019. Over the next 18 months, Fraunhofer IEE and Fraunhofer IMW will work together with the School of Public Policy SPP of the University of Chiang Mai to develop a strategy that will enable integrated urban development in historic districts by sustainable growth, modernization and safeguarding of use through integrated energy systems and redevelopment. YoU2 attaches particular importance to the systematic identification, adaptation, transfer and embedding of knowledge from regional and international contexts, which is reflected in the content of the work packages and runs through the project as a common thread.

Chiang Mai is the largest city in northern Thailand and a popular tourist destination for at least 3 million tourists per year. The number of visitors almost doubled between 2008 and 2017. In response to rising demand, the tourist infrastructure is steadily expanding and is putting pressure on urban areas with a large stock of architectural cultural heritage. The associated high urban development dynamics are changing the built as well as the traditional socio-economic structures in these districts. At the same time, large sections of the local population and the municipal administration are uncertain about how to deal with the impact of these development dynamics on the material and immaterial cultural heritage in the neighborhoods concerned.

The aim of the partners is long-term cooperation within the framework of pilot and demonstration projects in the subsequent research and development phase starting in 2021. The design of these projects offers the possibility of applying and further developing the strategy developed in the definition phase, which optimizes the fit of solutions and the likelihood of long-term successful development of the market segment "Southeast Asian secondary cities".