Smart Participation
The smart city measure "Smart Participation" aims to make citizen participation smarter, more digital, more low-threshold and more broadly effective. The WISSENSARCHITEKTUR team uses and tests numerous instruments, some of which it has developed itself:
The citizens' lab as a central location for citizen-centred communication
The Dresden "Bürgerlabor" (="Citizens' Lab", Kreuzstr. 2) was developed in 2021 as part of the Zukunftsstadt project. Here, citizens, city administration, politics and business are brought together to jointly advance innovative, citizen-centred and digital developments in the city via events, exhibitions and open consultation days in "pop-up style".
A central location that brings together citizen-centred communication and innovative administration physically and with the support of digital tools at a low threshold.
"Future tram" as rolling participation laboratories
The Zukunftsbahn (= "Future Tram") is an original way of making participation in the city visible and reaching citizens with little affinity to digital media. In cooperation with Dresdner Verkehrsbetriebe (DVB), three regularly operating trams were transformed into idea labs in which passengers could contribute their thoughts on Smart City Dresden "on the move". The ideas and comments were noted on sticky notes in the tram and attached to posters on the carriage windows.
U_CODE - Co-design and analysis tool
U_CODE is a computer application for co-design participation processes with appealing 3D graphics, low-threshold handling and differentiated evaluation options. It was developed in a Horizon2020-funded research and innovation project under the leadership of WISSENSARCHITEKTUR. Since then, the tool has proven itself in numerous national (Fritz-Foerster-Platz Dresden) and international (Kenya and others) urban planning projects - and is currently being spun off as a start-up as part of an Exist research transfer. In 2021, U_Code was awarded the Ralf Dahrendorf Prize for Science Communiation.
Digital participation concept
A digital participation concept is to bundle all tools on the basis of an evaluation of existing and planned instruments (project list, portfolio case) in alignment with the smart city strategy. Citizen information, data cockpits, interactive information elements (digital citizen kiosks) and online participation platforms will be tested in the citizen lab and the model city quarters.
Digital and analogue formats interact to enable cross-generational participation, wide reach and broad impact. Playful, experimental approaches strengthen digital education and support low-threshold co-creation and co-innovation in urban communities. The goal is a "Dresden Model - Participation Kit".