Lars Zimmermann discusses how cities can be redesigned in a more sustainable and circular manner through hacking. Some ideas presented include turning buildings into urban farms, repurposing public spaces and infrastructure for new uses, emphasizing modularity and reusability of products, and using playful interventions to encourage creative thinking about sustainability. The goal is to break systems out of their existing limitations and imagine new possibilities by hacking at multiple levels from mobility to nature to buildings.

1. Lars Zimmermann
Mifactori
Designer, Artist, Activist
Mifactori.de
@bricktick

2. Open Sans Light
Hacking
Cities
Circular!

3. The Earth Is Cities
40% of carbon emission from
construction.
50% of cities for 2050 are yet to be build.
(2017)

4. But they are still
extremely unsustainable.

5. Open Source We know for a
long time about
sustainability
issues but did
not made any
much progress.
Why?

6. Lock(ed)
In
effect

7. Lock(ed)
In
effect
When you are trapped in decisions you made in the past.

8. We need to
teach kids to
„respect“ cars.

9. CLASS: How To Design An Open Source
Circular Product?
With A Fitting Open Business Model?
I can teach students to design sustainable products for open circular
ecosystems. But I can usually talk to them once. They are surrounded
every day by 1000s of unsustainable closed products...

11. Fying for Sustainability Research!
A sustainability
researcher for 20
years who could not
imagine ways to
organize a european
research project
without constantly
flying around ...

12. What we can think and are able to
imagine is determined by what we see
and use on a daily bases (in cities).
How to get out of this
prision for our imagination?

14. HACKING

15. HACKING
CITIES
Reinvent Them Sustainable

16. WHAT THE HECK IS HACKING?

18. REINVENT

19. Who were the first „hackers“?
MIT – Tech Model Railroad Club
(late 50‘s)
Hier ist ein Hacker „(...) jemand, der seinen Einfallsreichtum nutzt, um ein
kluges Ergebnis zu erreichen, einen Hack, ohne dies auf den Computer zu
beschränken. Das Wesen eines Hacks ist es, dass er rasch durchgeführt wird,
effektiv ist und unelegant sein kann. Er erreicht das gewünschte Ziel, ohne die
Systemarchitektur, in die er eingebettet ist, komplett umformen zu müssen,
obwohl er oft im Widerspruch zu ihr steht.“ (WIKIPEDIA, HACKER, CC-BY-SA)

20. WHAT THE HECK IS HACKING?

21. WHAT THE HECK IS HACKING?
To break a systems limitations.

22. WHAT THE HECK IS HACKING?
To break a systems limitations.
Repurpose! Take something and
use it for soemthing entirely else.

23. WHAT THE HECK IS HACKING?
To break a systems limitations.
Repurpose! Take something and
use it for soemthing entirely else.
Do with stuff what YOU want, not
what STUFF wants you to.

24. ‚A Hacker is someone
who tries to make toast
with a coffee machine.‘
Wau Holland

35. You build nothing new!
You use what is already there.
This is sustainable.

36. CAN WE DO
THIS WITH
OUR CITIES?

37. Yes, of course :)

38. STEP 1: Turn it into a PLAYGROUND

39. via partizaning make make

40. Florian Riviere

41. Florian Riviere

42. Source: Rottenapple.us

43. Florian Riviere

44. Source: Rottenapple.us

45. Source: Rottenapple.us

46. Makerplatz
A HACK

47. Carousel
Florian Riviere

48. TURN
THE
CITY
INTO
A
PLAYGROUND!
yeah!
ヽ(^。^)ノ
＼(◎o◎)／

49. BUT HOW ABOUT
USING IT
TO MAKE
OUR CITIES
CIRCULAR?
(SUSTAINABLE)
?
(◎o◎)

50. „Fab City
Model“

51. possible with

52. WHAT THE HECK IS HACKING?
To break a systems limitations.
Repurpose! Take something and
use it for soemthing entirely else.
Do with stuff what YOU want, not
what STUFF wants you to.

53. WHAT THE HECK IS HACKING?
To break a systems limitations.
Repurpose! Take something and
use it for soemthing entirely else.
Do with stuff what YOU want, not
what STUFF wants you to.
... But what do you want?

54. ‚A Hacker is someone
who tries to make toast
with a coffee machine.‘
Wau Holland
This hacker knows.
But what is a sustainable
circular city?
(= Our Question,
yours might differ)

55. Open Sans Light
(City)
Hackers
Closing
Loops!

56. Our Research
2013 – Start as „City Hacking Academy“ at openit.cc
2015 – Continued as „The City Is Open Source“ at
thecityisopensource.de
2018 – Now „Hackers Closing Loops“ programme at
mifactori.de
Let‘s look at some findings
* Notice: Not all of the content on the following pages is created
by us. Things we found on the web are marked with: *

57. Turn buildings
into farm-
scrapers
Surveil-
lance to
bird watch
Cargo bike
unloading
Public
worm-
composting
Extend the
use of train
tracks
Turn the city
into a
botanical
garden
It’s gym
equipment
Sheeps in
Public
Transport
Ads for
repairing
stuff
Car
free
hours
Highlight nuts
and bolts
(modularity)
Parking
space
green-
houses
HACKING
CITIES
CIRCULAR

58. Examples:
MOBILITY
NATURE (& FOOD)
PRODUCTS
BUILDINGS
PEOPLE (SOCIAL)

59. Examples:
MOBILITY
NATURE (& FOOD)
PRODUCTS
BUILDINGS
PEOPLE (SOCIAL)

61. Ban Cars!
Make it inconvenient and very expensive to own,
drive and park a car in the city!

62. Use creative marking
to reorganize the
power structure on
the streets. (Through
irritation for example)
*

63. All kinds of marks to repurpose the public space –
the streets and parking spaces!

65. Parking Day

68. Move
*

69. Synergies
*

72. Propeller?

73. Hermannplatz -> Boddinstraße

75. Examples:
MOBILITY
NATURE (& FOOD)
PRODUCTS
BUILDINGS
PEOPLE (SOCIAL)

77. Urban Gardening: Grow Food In The City
*

78. Turn every building into a
farm-scraper

79. Viersen blüht
*

80. everywhere

81. Minimal
viable
parkable
objects ?
Cardboard
wheels?
Lego Motor?

82. The Urban Food Gardener Startup

83. City Hacking Exercise
(How to create ideas)
What If The City Was A Farm?

84. No Toxins
Allowed
City Hacking Exercise
(How to create ideas)
What If The City Was A Farm?

86. Teach kids
creative activism!
mifactori.de/
palast-der-projekte

87. TURN THE CITY
INTO A BOTANICAL MUSEUM/GARDEN
OR NATIONAL PARK

91. Examples:
MOBILITY
NATURE (& FOOD)
PRODUCTS
BUILDINGS
PEOPLE (SOCIAL)

92. Examples:
MOBILITY
NATURE (& FOOD)
PRODUCTS
BUILDINGS
PEOPLE (SOCIAL)

95. pfandring
*

96. pfandring

100. HACKING FOR MODULARITY!

104. Modularity

105. FEE UNIVERSAL CONSTRUCTION KIT
*

107. Pre-Use! (DIY Circularity)
mifactori.de/pre-use

108. openstructures.net
Things built hackable

109. Workshop with the 3erlin Grid: Zirkulärer Sperrmüll
>

111. Examples:
MOBILITY
NATURE (& FOOD)
PRODUCTS
BUILDING(S)
PEOPLE (SOCIAL)

113. Turn every building into a farm-scraper

114. Synergies
Orangerie +

115. & highlight reusability

116. Communicate care & repairusability
*

117. *

118. make it reusable

119. flexibility and adaptability

120. Screws Instead Glues
A QUICK GUIDE TO CIRCULAR STREET ART
visit Mifactori.de

122. Examples:
MOBILITY
NATURE (& FOOD)
PRODUCTS
BUILDINGS
PEOPLE (SOCIAL)

125. Playgrounds

127. Bau die Stadt so, wie Du Sie willst, oder brauchst.
Seen in Viersen/Germany

131. Create Your Space For Experiments

132. Fight Surveillance

133. Surveillatons

135. Examples:
MOBILITY
NATURE (& FOOD)
PRODUCTS
BUILDINGS
PEOPLE (SOCIAL)

137. HACKER
TOOLS

139. BIO HACKING | CITIZEN SCIENCE, (OS = increase efficiency, lower costs)

140. Open Source makes our world
hackable
and therefor:
able to be free and to be trusted

142. THANK YOU

143. Lars Zimmermann
Mifactori
Designer, Artist, Activist
Mifactori.de
@bricktick

144. THANKS FOR THE
ATTENTION

145. WHAT CAN‘T WE DO
IN THIS SPACE

154. More? Start here: mifactori.de/category/city-hacking/

155. Last Update: November 2019
License: Not all pictures are created by us. So we can‘t
share the presention under an open license although we
are happy to see it used. In any case all pics created by
us unless otherwise noted are licensed under:
CC-BY 4.0