SMART SPACE Hardenbergplatz Launches

26 November saw the official launch of Berlin pilot project SMART SPACE Hardenbergplatz. By 2026, an operator model and digital platform for the flexible use of station forecourts will be developed on the square – in cooperation with urban society. 

A QR code brings him to life: Prussian state chancellor and administration reformer Karl August von Hardenberg appears as a statue on tablets and smartphones. Not in real life, of course, but as a mixed-reality application. He throws off his bronze shell, talks about his eventful life and thus creates a link to both the present and the future. This important statesman died 200 years ago – on 26 November 1822. In Berlin, where he was active for more than 20 years before his death, he is commemorated by a bronze statue in front of the House of Representatives and a bust on the Hardenbergplatz in Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, which was named after him. And currently by a QR code on the ground of the square, which connects users to the AR application at the location.

Last Saturday, the “SMART SPACE Hardenbergplatz” pilot project was launched on the project space itself, which spans the roughly 3,000 square metres between Bahnhof Zoo station and the Berlin zoo. The state of Berlin plans to develop the southern part of the square “into an urban area with increased quality of residence, smart mobility offers and flexible use of space” within the Smart Cities – Urban Development and Digitisation model project funded by the Federal Ministry for Housing, Urban Development and Building (BMWSB). No easy feat, as Dr Angela Jain, Deputy Head of the CDO/Smart City unit within the Berlin Senate Chancellery, emphasised as she rang in the project together with District Mayor of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf Kirstin Bauch and District Councillor Oliver Schruoffeneger. This is due to the fact that Hardenbergplatz is a central traffic hub with high utilisation pressure, which is not only frequented by buses, trains, cars and bicycles but is also crossed by travellers, tourists and Berliners as they go to work or shop in the City West.

Over the next four years – and in cooperation with urban society – an innovative “operator model” will be developed for the Hardenbergplatz along with a digital “negotiation platform” which aims to help make areas in public space usable for various applications. The idea behind the platform is for users to be able to request  bookings for concrete street areas in future. The booking and negotiation app will thus become the central interface between users and operators, with the aim of harmonising the flexible use of the square and making it more efficient.

The developers feel it is important that the Smart Space Hardenbergplatz pilot project develop a prototype nature, so that the digital platform can be transferred to other public spaces throughout Germany as an exemplary process after 2026. Nationwide, there are currently 73 such pilots within the Smart Cities Model Projects. As part of the new Going Digital Together: Berlin (“Gemeinsam Digital: Berlin") strategy, Berlin is implementing a total of five pilot projects funded by the BMWSB. Besides the SMART SPACE Hardenbergplatz project, these are: Smart Water; Data Governance & Data-Driven Administration; Kiezbox 2.0; and Smart Participation/Community Budgeting.

Partners of the SMART SPACE Hardenbergplatz pilot project include the state of Berlin (Senate Chancellery; Senate Department for the Environment, Urban Mobility, Consumer Protection and Climate Action; Senate Department for Urban Development, Building and Housing; Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf District Office), German Rail (“Deutsche Bahn”), BVG, INSEL-PROJEKT.BERLIN, the Centre for Technology and Society at TU Berlin, Arge insar/Inter 3, Arge Studio Deussen and CityLAB Berlin. (vdo)