Urban IntelligenceParticipatory urbanism and the city as interface

Introducing VURB

Hello,my name is Juha. Nice to meet you.

I used to work for the n8,a collaborative platform for museum innovation. Its biggest event is the annual Museum Night…

Pssst! This is Theo

Watson…

“We could use some help.”

...then I founded Non-fiction,with my best friend Michiel.

It is an office for cultural innovationthat makes things public…

Connecting the City

“Something seems to be

missing here..”

“Indeed, and I know what!”

…like this place, De Verdieping,a collaborative cultural space downstairs that we started this year. Check it out later, there are interesting things going on

there right now.

I like electronic music so much,that once a month I share this with some people at a night

called Viral Radio (it is actually tonight, you are all welcome to stick around)…

‘Share this!’ + ‘Making things public’ + ‘Just do it!’

are how you could summarise the things we do…

So I was happy,and minding my business…

… until these guys showed up:Ben Cerveny and James Burke.

Together we founded VURB,a research foundation investigating how ubiquitous computing, sensor networks and mobile media are changing the way we

understand, build and inhabit cities.

It was London 2012,that was one of the reasons VURB was established. Ben’s experiences

with thinking about the information infrastructure for the Olympics resulted in a clairvoyance about the need to build an interaction

platform…

VURB is a momentum machine,for the current international quest for the holy grail:

how to build an operating system for the city…

Amsterdam OS,the city as an operating system. The city is not just built upon

physical infrastructure, but also on patterns and flows of information that are growing and transforming…

The medium is the metropolis.A new vernacular in urbanism is upon us: civic information systems,

collaborative redevelopment, urban systems literacy, responsive environments and urban interface policy (just to name a few)…

VURB acts as a connector,linking municipalities and public institutions with private vehicles. Amongst our partners are Cisco, ARUP and Nokia, but also CitiLab,

CurrentCity Foundation and Waag Society. Together we want to develop policy in a European context…

…that make cities visible.Through data visualisation and computational design hidden

layers in the city become visible and form a dynamic immaterial architecture...

We call this Cloud City.Cloud computing is part of the urban fabric. In 2010 we will organise a one-day marathon on informational weather and

global infowarming. The city is becoming…

Thank you.Juha van ‘t Zelfde >>juha@vurb.eu >> www.vurb.eu

(sorry for ripping your pictures, internet people)