From hackathon to biennale

At last year’s Places _ VR Hackathon, the team “City Greenymizers” was able to convince both jury and audience with their prototype. After their participation in our hackathon, the team continued to work in its colorful international composition and submitted their refined prototype to the London Design Biennale (1. – 27.6.2021). The application was successful and so the competition in Gelsenkirchen will be followed by the next great appearance in London.

Team members Sebastian Witt, Pooja Verma, Marita Metzler, Ismeni Walter, Soykan Soyucayli, Michelle Adolfs and Fabian Jauss developed a working prototype of a VR application in just 24 hours at the hackathon in August that takes citizen participation in planning processes for a greener and more sustainable city to a new level. By changing houses, trees or bike lanes on a map in “sandbox mode” and a “pedestrian mode,” users can explore their design life-size. Effects on temperature, noise or air pollution are visualized instantly.
This allows users to see and understand the direct impact of specific design elements and why, for example, a tree or meadow is useful and necessary in a particular location.
The initiative for the application to the Design Biennale came from the challenge giver of the hackathon, the project lala.ruhr, which together with “Innovationstreiber” Steffen Budweg accompanied the project even after the hackathon. We are happy about the positive development of the hackathon team and wish them good luck in London!

Project “Greenymizer” on the London Design Biennale website

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