goUrban — Rework Oerlikon

Rework Oerlikon.

A hundred young planners. One real district. Forty-eight hours to see what planning looks like when the standard reads itself. Say what a street needs, in your words; goUrban puts it on the ground, checked against Swiss norms, before the meeting starts. You choose what to recommend.

The theme: planning at the speed of the conversation

Every planner knows the gap. The idea comes in a meeting; the answer comes three weeks later, once someone has pulled the widths, opened the standard, and drawn the line. By then the meeting has moved on. For two days in Oerlikon, the questions you would normally park — does this street hold a cycle lane if the parking stays? can this line pass that building? will this sewer drain? — get answered while you are still talking.

Cycle corridors, power lines, street trees, gravity sewers: four kinds of work fighting for the same few metres. Ten jobs, each with a real client and a real conflict. You take a position on every one, and the people building the tool are in the room, shipping fixes as you find what's missing.

Swiss standards, built in — not looked up

Nothing goUrban puts on the map is unchecked. Cycle corridors are measured against the Zurich Cycling Standards 2024, Table 1 and VSS SN 640 060 — 3.00 m for traffic, then 2.20 m or 2.50 m left for the bike, with the §2.4.2 minimums beneath. Power lines are held to LeV Art. 38 (SR 734.31): 20 m from any building. Sewers to VSA / SN 592 000: ≥ 0.5 % downhill or a pump. Street trees to the City Parks rhythm: 8 m apart, 2.5 m off a facade.

You read it in three colours. Blue: it stands. Yellow: below the standard, above the minimum — justify it. Magenta: below the hard limit. Every colour cites its clause, so the compliance argument is made before coordination, and the conversation can be about the city instead of the table.

When you know better than the map — you walked the street this morning, the neighbourhood said no on Tuesday — you say so, and it travels with the line under your name. The standard is the floor. Your judgement is the plan.

What to expect

01 · Arrive

A name, a craft, a PIN

Come as yourself — cycling, utilities, trees, or curious. The PIN is how the district remembers you for two days.

02 · Work

Ten real jobs on Oerlikon streets

An engineering office wants a corridor. A neighbourhood won't give up parking. A utility wants gravity. Each ends with your recommendation, not a drawing.

03 · Push back

When something is wrong, say so

Report it in a sentence. An engineer ships the fix while you keep planning, and the agent tells you, by name, when it lands.

04 · See each other

Two boards, no scores

Planners are seen for recommendations filed and problems found; engineers for fixes shipped. Nobody gets a number out of a hundred.

05 · The arc

Four challenges over 48 hours

Ship one corridor. Defend a tradeoff. Name the standard. Close the loop with the engineers. The board clock says which is live.

06 · Leave with

A way of working you can take home

Ten recommendations with their metres and clauses, and a say in what the tool becomes next.

Two days in Oerlikon

1Friday evening. Log in, pick your craft, open your first street. Two clicks, one sentence, and a corridor is on the ground with its metres — checked against Table 1 before your coffee is cold.

2Saturday. The neighbourhood wants its parking; the standard wants 2.20 m; the street has 2.0. You read the yellow, decide, and write the sentence you'd say in coordination.

3Saturday night. A width you know is wrong. You report it; across the room an engineer ships the fix, and your chat says who. You reload and keep going.

4Sunday. Sewers and street trees. A hundred planners' recommendations on the board, a few dozen fixes shipped. The tool is different from Friday because you made it so.

5Sunday evening. One question at every close: would you use this on a live project? Your answer is what we build next.