Hackable city
Institute of Network Cultures BY-NC-SA

The Hackable City

Recently, a new publication was published titled 'The Hackable City: A Research Manifesto and Design Toolkit'. Interesting for anyone who wants to know more about the open process of citymaking.

The Hackable City is a research project on the role of digital media in the process of citymaking that resulted from a cooperation between One Architecture and The Mobile City Foundation. The project investigates the opportunities of digital media technologies for the empowerment of citizens and other stakeholders in a democratic process of citymaking. It also explores the shift in roles of and relationships between governments, (design) professionals and citizens in this process.

The publication is available for download as a pdf under a CC BY-NC-SA license.

The Hackable City (normative definition):
In a hackable city, new media technologies are employed to open up urban institutions and infrastructures to systemic change in the public interest. It combines top-down smart-city technologies with bottom-up ‘smart citizen’ initiatives. In a hackable city, the urban (data) infrastructure functions as a platform that can be appropriated and incrementally improved upon by various stakeholders.

The Hackable City (research project):
The goal of this research project is to explore the opportunities as well as challenges of the rise of new media technologies for an open, democratic process of collaborative citymaking. How can citizens, design professionals, local government institutions and others employ digital media platforms in collaborative processes of urban planning, management and social organization, to contribute to a liveable and resilient city, with a strong social fabric?