City Upgrade

”High Spirited Networked City” is the first of three project years that will feature a series of urban development/architectural investigations at various levels in 2005 as part of ”steirischer herbst 2005”. In a laboratory-like setting, the aim is to test and develop concepts for ”City Upgrade”, focusing on ”the other bank of the Mur in Graz”.

Based on various cities, similar in size and faced with similar problems to Graz, the aim is to discuss and investigate various principles and strategies of restructuring the city so as to be able to adapt ”intelligently” to ”new needs”. The findings of this synergy of research and design are intended to help initiate and control complex developments in the urban space in a forward-looking manner. The result of the project from this co-operation of an interdisciplinary team (architects, urbanists, artists, musicians, net.writer, philosopher, photographer, media theorist and politicians) will be presented to a wide public in the form of an ”urban installation” that will arise from the interaction of various media (discourse & designs, urban development models, film).

For development and production of the project, A.N.D.I., A New Digital Instrument for networked creative collaboration (info: www.ortlos.at), a platform for creative collaboration via the Internet, will be used as an instrument allowing the interdisciplinary, international team to work jointly on the project on an equal basis at every stage of the project. At the urban level it is the concept of the ”networked city” (W. Mitchell) that may be used to implement characteristics of digital communities and infrastructure in the real environments, so as to enable a fusion of virtual and real spaces.

Konzept / Idee: ortlos architects