NEB Network App

A Participatory
Urban Experience

Our cities are built for us, so why are we so rarely asked?

An augmented reality platform for the participatory shaping of the built environment.

Developed in the Reallabor ZEKIWA Zeitz, within the New European Bauhaus
Reallabor ZEKIWA Zeitz New European Bauhaus

Illustrative preview with example content

What is a portal?

A window into the future of a real place.

A place in your city that is about to change. Step into its ring and it opens around you in augmented reality.

Say your idea out loud and see it take shape.

Dreaming phase

Illustrative preview with example content

Find

Find the places that are changing.

Every portal is a real site where your voice counts. Walk there and it opens.

The map in Zeitz next to the old ZEKIWA building, with portals around it
Dreaming phase

Dream it, out loud.

Say what this place could become. Your dream joins everyone else’s on the Dream Tree.

“I dream of a sustainable green space …”

Dreams grow on dreams: build yours on the place as it is, or on anyone else’s. Like code in git, they stack and branch, and nothing is lost.

Illustrative preview with example content

Decision phase

Decide it, together.

Architects and designers turn the dreams into options. You compare them at full scale, right where they would stand.

“I like the solar tree. The bench gives shade, too.”
Dwelling phase

Then dwell in it.

Its digital twin shows the heat, water and power. Ask, and the building answers.

“Where does the heat come from in winter?”
Out in the field

Tested where people live.

We put the portals in the hands of the people who live there.

Two people at a tablet on a tripod in front of a modernist building
A hand holding a tablet above a canal, a future of the place on screen
Someone looking at a tablet on a tripod in a park
Two people looking at a façade through a tablet
A group in front of a brick building, one of them holding up a tablet
A man pointing at the building he sees on the tablet

“A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.”

Yoko Ono
Two people discussing a design on a tablet indoors
Where it began

Started in Zeitz. Made for Europe.

NEB Network App is developed in the Reallabor ZEKIWA Zeitz, a former pram factory where the city, universities and residents test new ways of building together.

Visit the Reallabor
Map of Zeitz with the ZEKIWA site marked
Zeitz, Saxony-Anhalt
Team

The people behind the app.

We are a team from Europe, and we aim to support democratic development and group decision-making.

The NEB Network App team with colleagues at an event of the Reallabor ZEKIWA Zeitz, standing behind an architectural model
  • Prof. Hermann Wolfram KlöcknerNEB Network App Team Leader
  • Yigit AkyolUX/UI Designer
  • Jennifer HarthunUX/UI Designer
  • Nigel HartmanDeveloper
  • Siamak RoudyaniDeveloper
  • Vitalina StepnikovaDeveloper
New European Bauhaus

Beautiful. Sustainable. Together.

A European Union initiative that makes the green transition beautiful, sustainable and inclusive, for every community, even the smallest.

Visit NEB
Get the app

Coming soon to WebXR, iOS and Android.

NEB Network App is open source. All you will need is your phone: walk to a portal near you and have your say.

A portal for your city or project? Get in touch

Partners
Stadt Zeitz Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg Forum Rathenau Burg Giebichenstein Kunsthochschule Halle Hochschule Anhalt
Officially funded by
Funded by the European Union Sachsen-Anhalt Sachsen-Anhalt – Gemeinsam für ein Neues Europäisches Bauhaus
Research

Collaborative and participatory design of community spaces at local and municipal level: a multi-method approach. Kokoschko, Wiesner, Akyol, Wilke, Klöckner, Schabacker, Augustin. EPDE 2025.

Read the paper