Platform for Urban Exchange

The Platform for Urban Exchange is a communication and planning platform for the creation of urban scenarios. Visualizing a publicly available dataset of planning materials on a screen, it is then supplemented by a physical model on top of it.

The platform can for example be used in planning workshops with experts and representatives of civil society to exchange information relevant to planning and to simulate planning scenarios. The effects on the environment as well as their interactions can thus be presented directly, so that decision-making in planning processes can be qualitatively facilitated and designed inclusively. The platform created as part of StadtManufaktur focuses on Neu-Hohenschönhausen.

The “Platform for Urban Exchange” was developed within the first pilot project for the Berlin neighborhood Neu-Hohenschönhausen as part of the StadtManufaktur Berlin.

In the project, complex urban processes are channelled through overarching thinking and working. The task is to design living labs for Berlin with the help of urban partners and to distill scientifically based application-oriented results from the projects. Transformation knowledge is to be systematized and made accessible to diverse locations with comparable problem situations. The project is open to partners and actors from civil society, science and business. The initialization phase is supported by CityLAB Berlin – an experimental laboratory for the city of the future.

The pilot project “Last Mile – New Neighborhood” as part of the “StadtManufaktur” investigates to what extent new forms of mobility and use of space can support the transformation of the currently mainly monofunctional large housing estate Neu-Hohenschönhausen towards a more mixed-use and lively neighborhood. In an innovative partnership, the bridge between science and practice is being built in order to incorporate the merged knowledge into the sustainable transformation of the urban neighborhood along challenges such as demographic change, digitalization and climate change. The “Platform for Urban Exchange” was developed in order to bring the city’s multifaceted data into the negotiation processes between civilians, experts and other stakeholders and to be able to simulate them in different scenarios. The platform enables the mapping and interweaving of different urban and freely accessible data sets in real time. This allows complex urban contexts to be viewed, understood and simulated in order to be able to present and debate the consequences of upcoming planning decisions quickly and in an informed manner within workshop and stakeholder rounds.

The “Platform for Urban Exchange” describes in its current scope a first state of development, which will be further developed in the future collaboratively and under open source license.

The planning table was designed as a communication and planning platform for the creation of urban scenarios. In joint rounds of participating experts and civil society, it supports the exchange of planning-relevant information as well as simulations about the respective urban area. On this basis, current situations can be reviewed and intertwined and analyzed with new urban planning settings. Directly simulating and weighing the effects on the urban environment as well as their interactions are able to be virtualized.  Decision-making for urban decision-makers and involved stakeholders can thus be qualitatively improved and made more inclusive through the high-performance integration of data sets.

For the demonstration in the exhibition context, static information can be transported via common image or video playback programs to convey the range of functions of the “Platform for Urban Exchange”.

Here you can find the extensive Platform documentation (PDF).