On 6 June 2015 around 30 representatives and citizens of the municipality of Ahrensfelde joined the Workshop on the Future of Ahrensfelde. The municipality on the periphery of Berlin successfully participated in the "City of the Future" contest funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research and is one of 52 German cities that will build a vision of its future this year. The Ecologic Institute and the University of Applied Sciences in Eberswalde are supporting the vision building process and a potentially following reality lab. Doris Knoblauch moderated the kick-off workshop.

Ahrensfelde is an administrative fusion of five former individual municipalities. It is located in the north-east of Berlin, Germany, and has to deal with challenges such as aging citizens, an increasing demand in construction space for single-family houses, peri-urban social conflicts, a large amount of commuters and the lack of a high school.

The focus of the workshop was to discuss, together with the representatives of the municipality, the local advisory councils and expert citizens, as well as with scientific support about the future development of the municipality. Which direction is Ahrensfelde taking? What are its priorities? Through presentations and discussion in three fora on obligatory tasks, voluntary tasks and administrative modernization/participant participation a common frame for orientation on the future of Ahrensfelde was developed.