New frameworks for local communities

Apply by answering five questions below.

We invite property developers, service providers, administrators, urban designers, platform developers, community developers, and sensor suppliers for measuring urban activity to submit your take on commercial solutions which create new frameworks for social areas and communities.

The pandemic challenged local communities, especially those where residents live side by side and door to door. While social bubbles and physical distancing was a reality, it was not possible to be around people in the same way and in the same places as we were used to.

Thus, communities found a way forward. They shared spaces in residential areas, the community spaces and stairwells, became the places we met. Digital solutions became a crucial part of communities. They were the key to finding help with small everyday tasks, shopping and creating activities for children sent home from school. But not everyone found it easy to fit in to the new framework. The digital platforms can despite their advantages exclude people and the physical spaces available can be limiting in regard to the new needs of communities.

The pandemic has shown us the importance of not taking community participation and social relations as granted. Although it has also shown that given the right conditions communities will develop. It has shown that we need to design and develop for new ways of high density living, where we safely can open the boundaries between what is mine and yours. Where facades and stairwells are not only border zones but the new place and way to be social.

Therefore, we would like to support solutions and platforms which create new frameworks for everyday communities in the new high density urban environment. Physical and digital frameworks for communities which has room for all citizens no matter their needs. Flexible frameworks which can adapt and not limit our way of life in a world where communities in the urban environment once again might be challenged.

The type of solutions we are looking for:

• Solutions which allow for more things to be done outside / in the urban space e.g., multifunctional solutions
• Digital supported organization of temporary activities and solutions in local communities which can be moved based on demand
• Solutions which create places to meet, also in grey and bad weather
• Concepts for new building and residential communities (which make it safe to live near each other) and new ways of facilitating construction communities
• Physical and digital solutions which support neighbor communities and make it safe to share facilities such as tools, shared spaces etc
• Solutions which rethink flexible adaptation of spaces and the use of facades, hallways, and edge zones to create communities and openness