In the design studio “Syn City” at the Bauhaus University Weimar innovative planning methods for the generation of urban spatial structures for emerging cities in ethiopia have been developed. The goal was to create a computer-based design strategy, which adapts plans to changing environmental and social parameters and integrates the perspective of the urban user. In that way, the urban master plan is synthesized by a set of rules which has derived from the lives and interactions of the urban actors, rather than being determined by abstract geometrical principles.