act-local

Act-Local: Urban Interventions

The activities presented on this page give an insight in how we achieved the active collaboration of the citizens of cologne when Unortkataster was introduced to the public. With this examples we want to underline our conviction that using software for raising a public participation process will only be successful, when the operators achieve a vivid communication process and maintain a high credibility. The collaboration with local partners therefore serves as a main key.

»Unortkataster office« at Plan08

Architecture and city planning event Plan08 gave the frame for the public presentation of Unortkataster. The research team temporarily opened an office in the city center  in order to personally introduce the platform to the cologne citizens. A second Unortkataster map was created as a huge wall of clipboards, each containing a part of the complete cologne map. Each office visitor was asked to mark his favourite »Unort« on the wall or in the Internet. The place became a meeting room for citizens, architects, city planners and politics. Lord Major Fritz Schramma dedicated the platform to the city and marked made his own contribution. After a week about 100 plazes were marked in the office and a broad discourse about the platform was established.

Thanks to Natalia Göllner for supporting the design of Unortkataster office.

Mobile Marker

Mobile Marker

An oversized object referring to the markers on the Unortkataster map was constructed and realized by sculptor Christian Odzuk and moved by three assistants to places in the city. A filmteam followed the object during the tour through the city and recorded interviews with passers-by questioning the idea of the platform and the relevance of the contributions.

Video by: Lynn Kossler

Acoustic investigations: Frank Schulte

Frank Schulte kartiert akustische Unorte

Sound artist Frank Schulte audio-recorded, photographed and described 20 plazes in the city that he regarded as critical from an acoustic viewpoint. All of the recordings he produced during his inquiries were published on the unortkataster-map. Finally »city-acoustics« was introduced as a new topic of the platform.

Video by: Lynn Kossler

Video annotations by Martin Stankowski

Neumarktgalerie

Together with Cologne obsessed city guide and author Martin Stankowski we recorded a number of video-comments. In the clips he gives critical comments about Colognes public space in the past and today.

Videos by: Stefan and Natalia Göllner

Editorial team from »Koelnarchitektur«

In an early phase we assembled a qualified editorial team to support the initial content collection on www.unortkataster.de by skilled professionals. Besides the entries of  amateurs, the Cologne based specialists – active on portal Koelnarchitektur.de – documented their critical view on the city and touched many of the popular issues in the current city planning controversy.

www.koelnarchitektur.de