departure City Hype ideas competition

Last year, departure, the creative agency of the City if Vienna launched a series of ideas competitions to bring forward creative ideas for urban innovation in Vienna and beyond. The 2013 issue of the ideas competition - Cycling Affairs - received more that 200 submissions.

With this year’s ideas competition departure launches a project that provides participants with the opportunity to reflect on what the brief calls a "solidarity city" - City Hype  - invites creative professionals and city enthusiasts to formulate their ideas for coexistence on an equal footing, to provide the city with a multifaceted, modern identity and to actively participate in shaping its future. 

The ideas competition is open for individuals, start-ups or collectives from various disciplines located in Vienna or internationally. The submission of multiple entries is possible. Please find the registration form here. 

To steer inspiration for first ideas of potential participants the team of departure came up with core areas and specific questions as relevant to the overall theme of the competition. These questions can be taken as points of departure for working on the ideas competition:

THE SOLIDARITY CITY
Which measures focus on justice and solidarity as basic prerequisites for the social interactions of the city dwellers?

THE NETWORKED CITY
How do technologies react to the requirements of a network society, to its high degree of innovative dynamism and advancing digitalization?

THE FLEXIBLE CITY
How can the requirements imposed by the revolution of the working environment be turned into practice and which new models for work, leisure time and life planning are imaginable?

THE OPEN CITY
Where is room for actively participating in the creation of communicative locations and how can we succeed in making the city a modern ‘place of action’ for all its inhabitants?

THE INTELLIGENT CITY
Which sustainable solutions can be developed for the future of a ‘smart city’ in terms of infrastructure, distribution and organization?

THE DETERMINED CITY
What are the tools and strategies required to meet both the needs of individuals and the challenges of the 21st century in a creative way and which lead to personal initiative for the benefit of the civil society? 

The competition's expert jury will be analysing the submitted projects according to the following criteria: 

• Creative quality

• Sustainability

• Potential for change

• Potential for activation

• Added value for the civil society

There are three jury prizes for the competition:  

1. prize: EUR 7,000
2. prize: EUR 5,000
3. prize: EUR 2,500

As well as one "Public’s choice award" which will be awarded by a public vote and which will win € 3,000.

The timeline for the competition is as following:

• Launch of ideas competition: April 15, 2014
• Deadline for submissions: June 18, 2014
• Public voting (for "Public Choice Award"): June 27 – July 20, 2014
• Jury meeting (For defining three jury prizes.): August 2014
• Award ceremony: September 2014

Read more about the ideas competition here and fond an English description here. 

Environmental Health by [re]designing Nature in a Solidary Way: Natalie Jeremijenko at k/haus Vienna

This is a short account of Natalie Jeremijenko's lecture: 'On engineering biodiversity, improving environmental health and wrestling Rhinocerous Beetles' which was held in conjunction with the ÖGFA series 'Solidarity - How do democratic spaces come into existence?' as part of the exhibition '[re]designing nature' at k/haus Vienna. 

It was inspiring to get new ideas of how to conceptualize our urban narratives in (environmental) design. From my notes taken during the lecture... 

Become an 'IMpatient' in the environmental health clinic to participate in changing what design means and in producing new collective goods. Nourish our common knowledge of how stuff is made. Get involved at the clinic's field offices floating as PET-bottle-barge on the East river or as an installation in the 'other-space' at the inside of a roundabout. Measure the sky's clearness with a wearable breathing mask indicator. Take out your environmentally pimped sensor feral robot dog to raise awareness about the state of the soil next door by performing for media outlets (let the media dogs bark for you!). Connect impatiently the local artists and community groups in financing a NOpark biofilter down the street. Resist the urban pollution fallout by installing an urban space station on your roof which will service your building's air. Visit 'Manhattan's National Wildlife Habitat' to understand urban environments in a different way, get in contact and flirt with the animals and enjoy previously invisible information at the 'amphibious architecture'. Become an 'adventurous eater' to break down existing borders in our food-webs.
(Yes,) We can (!) organize our common creative resources to become agents for environmental change, thereby overcoming a current 'crisis of agency'. We are all equally qualified to realize the transition of our material culture in a joyous, playful and sensual way. 

I will write a subsequent post presenting the work of the environmental health clinic in a more in-depth way.