A two week workshop in Madrid, Spain will start tomorrow. The focus of the training from Open Up is on the development of projects for the digital façade in Medialab-Prado's building. This is a collaborative effort is meant to explore the relationship between the urban screen and public space, to experiment with the screen’s communicative, narrative and visual capacities, and to investigate its potential to offer new forms of participation. Selected projects will even be developed further.

The MAPIC event has been running smoothly over the course of this week. Three outstanding retail complexes have been nominated for the MAPIC 2009 Best Shopping Center of the Year Award:
MyZeil in Frankfurt, Germany http://ourbania.com/urban-items/my-zeil
Odysseum in Montpellier, France http://ourbania.com/urban-items/odysseum
Westfield, United Kingdom http://ourbania.com/urban-items/westfield

This week, international real estate giants from over 60 different countries will be meeting in Cannes, France for the 15th MAPIC retail real estate event from November 18th-20th. The themes of the conference are "the impact of consumer behaviour on the sector, Germany's remarkable performance in the current crisis, tomorrow's markets, urban retailing planning, the investment agenda, and incorporating sustainable development into retail real estate projects" (www.mapic.com). The winners of the MAPIC Awards 2009 will be presented for the following categories:

Retail success story

Today is the launch of the real estate event that will rock New York in the new year. Our own Thomas Vogel will be in Times Square with leaders in real estate, technology, lending, title and financial services as of today, January 7th. On Thursday, January 8th, Thomas will be part of a panel which will discuss the future of real estate technology. Thomas will be sharing the purpose of ourbania: Our goal is to build up a Wikipedia of buildings. We want users to be able to network and connect directly with people in the commercial real estate sector via the projects they create.

There is a number of interesting events coming up over the next time on the globe. Therefor I want to keep you updated about fairs, conferences and general real estate, urban planning and architecture events.

• Urban Green Spaces Conference - Sofia, Bulgaria (17. - 18.04.2008)
• Cityscape Asia - Singapor, Singapor (15. - 17.04.2008)
  
  

At the international real estate fair Mipim 2008 in Cannes,
France, ourbania was successfully presented to the audience. At a
co-operation stand with the German Federal Ministry of Economics and
Technology, our founding partner Eurohypo (who managed the booth)
underlined the idea of ourbania as community for real estate
enthusiasts. Eurohypo draws a positive balance of the visitors'
reactions.

We just came across the banner of the CeBIT. Check it out on http://www.cebit.com. This trade fair is the world's largest trade fair showcasing digital IT and telecommunications solutions for home and work environments. It will take place in Hannover from March, 4th to 9th. The banner really is ourbania like? Is it possible that the producers were inspired by our community to create it? ;-)
This page looks pretty cool as well http://www.cebit.de/solutions.
I believe that most of the buildings are already present in this community.

The ourbania team is proud to announce that the community is listed in the "Top 10 websites - 2008" of the planning & development network planetizen.com. The site is mainly focussed on urban development & planning and wants to bring people together in that context, including urban insights especially for the American market. In their comments on our community, ourbania is described as "a fun, interactive site that lets you explore the world through its buildings" which underlines the idea behind it.

The special campaign ”Build&Win” ended on 31th January. In this campaign we wanted to encourage your enthusiasm on creating urban items on ourbania.com, especially your favorate arenas.

The response rate has been great and the urban items were well done. We would like to thank everyone who created urban items based on this campaign. We look forward to announce the winner. Of course, we will also present the winners’ created urban item(s) to you. By now we are evaluating the items and bringing the winner to light. He / she will be contacted by email.

There is an interesting event coming up from the 16th until the 19th of January 2008: the European Symposium on Research in Architecture and Urban Design EURAU 2008, which will be officially opened for the fourth time.

Currently, there's an interesting installation in Frankfurt/Germany by renowned dutch architect Ben van Berkel and various other artists, working together in a project group called "Space of Communication". Ben van Berkel designed the new Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart, Germany.

The Thing: Ben van Berkel (1)

Cited from the press release:

Win one of six vouchers to the amount of 80 Euro for a concert-ticket

On Saturday, November 10, 2007, the O2 World in Berlin opens it doors for all visitors on the occasion of Open House, on which Ourbania has a special offer:
All citizens of Ourbania are welcomed to build their multi-functional arena all over the world until January 31, midnight. Each one has the chance to win one of six vouchers to the amount of 80 Euro for a concert-ticket in a multi-functional arena close to your place and available to Eurohypo.

Just back from Berlin, I thought you might be interested in this event: In the course of a special exhibition, the Academie of Arts in Berlin illustrates the planning history of Interbau 1957 and the famous Hansaviertel with its 35 buildings.

© Akademie der Künste