“The architecture of intelligence is the architecture of connectivity. It is the architecture that brings together the three main spatial environments that we live in and with today: mind, world and networks.” Derrick de Kerckhove 2001

If we choose "Open Source Architecture" as a strategy and A.N.D.I. (A New Digital Instrument) as a working instrument, "City Upgrade" is the topic that is relevant right now. The objective is to identify and discuss the architectural, urbanistic and artistic problems of medium-sized European cities, define the complexes of problems and elaborate solutions in an interdisciplinary forum.

Looking at different cities, e.g. Nis in Serbia-Montenegro, Graz in Austria or Lille in France is to help to study strategies suitable for "upgrading" or restructuring medium-sized cities in order to enable them to grow "intelligently".
This new concept of urbanism is to make it possible to analyze and review the present development of the City of Graz or other European cities of a similar size and structure and to improve these cities appropriately.
Nis , a city that is characterized by informal excessive growth and an enormous concentration resulting from overbuilding, does not have the infrastructure capable of withstanding this enormous growth.
Graz is confronted with an old town that can hardly sustain changes or restructuring. Once the city has been defined as "World Cultural Heritage", growth is pushed towards the outskirts. However, this leads to problems relating to uncontrolled urban spread or "de-concentration" as well as to a lack of infrastructure in the new districts.
The City of Lille , for its part, needs to digest the fact that " Eurolille" has been implanted there. It is true that "Eurolille" works as an international "business turntable" for Belgium , England and the Netherlands . Nevertheless, it could never establish a homogeneous link between the old grown structure and the new structure created by the interference of city planning in the existing structure. For this reason, "Eurolille" is still seen as an urban foreign matter in the region.

As complexity is increasing constantly, dealing with architecture and urbanism has been much more than a mere concern of architects alone for a long time. For this reason, an interdisciplinary team made up of persons working in this field, such as those dealing with cultural or media research, ethnologists, sociologists, city planners, architects, (network) performers and politicians, will study the topic in order to formulate ideas and suggestions and to translate them into action.

The city characterized by informal excessive growth.

Substantial social contrasts are created by the move of qualified labour into western countries, the influx of refugees and rural exodus. Urbanization occurs without being steered or controlled. The city grows without an official economic basis. Criminality increases.
The clear structure of city planning, which still existed in the socialist era, is attacked by the new capital of the businesspeople and profiteers. The informal types of settlement ("Nadogradnja" – overbuilding the existing buildings) grow explosively and often unhindered. They often do so in environs where the infrastructure works well. As, however, growth also occurs in the outskirts, fragmentation and incoherence increase.
Development of rural concentration, which is positive in itself, is caused by the fact that new buildings are erected in a manner that is chaotic and informal, only focussing on making a quick profit and lacking any kind of planning. This overstrains the existing structures. Heterogeneous appearance and fragmented growth processes convey the impression of complete disorder that is slowly ordering itself.
Intensification of international co-operation and better adaptation to industrial production requirements accelerate economic growth and help the cities to obtain more direct international investments.
Dissemination of new concepts and solutions in the public sector is accelerated by an intensive exchange of information and experience. Strong economic growth in a decentralized political self-administration triggers urban improvements.

The city growing dynamically.

As compared to the example above, the standard of living is higher, and there are more opportunities for combating problems. However, this creates new problems, i.e. problems with achieving and maintaining sustainable development. In most cases, two centres will develop in parallel: the old city centre and the new part, which fully focuses on international relations – without considering regional interrelations. Dual economy: prosperous new areas and old structures threatened with de-industrialization.
The new, mostly bigger centres attract new settlers and develop in a decentralized way. Due to peripheral growth, they will often be far away from the old centres. Growth occurs in two ways: On the one hand, there will be formal new areas for those with a higher income. On the other hand, more areas will be settled by the poorer newcomers. As the new centres are of supraregional importance, they have an excellent infrastructure, above all in terms of transport and traffic. However, this infrastructure is destined for temporary types of business and settlement. Public transport only partly works. After all, the need for passenger transport increases rapidly, above all in the new parts because many people from the inner city work there.
Medium-sized cities have a growth rate that is extremely high and is even rising steadily. The cities of this category learn new things, profit from international experience and knowledge extremely successfully and increasingly play the role of pioneers in sustainable development. Production companies change over to production methods requiring more capital and knowledge. The cities are gradually becoming service centres with high-quality public transport connections and programmes promoting and subsidizing sustainable urban development. The flexible and qualified employees attract direct international investments and form the basis for local innovations. Economic change towards information technology yields improvements for many gainfully employed persons.

The mature city with decreasing dynamism.

Prosperous cities, most of whose inhabitants have a high educational level, have an administrative system that is well developed and can rely on a high amount of tax returns. In these so-called "slow-motion cities", problems relating to social policy are created by the necessity to adapt to the needs of an ageing population. Due to the decline in population figures, social welfare expenditure increases. In addition, older people are less mobile and need more living area per capita. High-grade services become a luxury. However, the demand for office and production areas will be reduced by a lower economic performance. This will lead to problems for the real estate market. The traditional face of a medium density city struggles with the tendency of real estate markets to favour low densities and with the fact that the way of life focuses excessively on the car – shopping centres are built in the outskirts, ... . With the help of its planning competence, such a city can develop scenarios to advance an old town that is stagnant and is classified as a historical site by dynamically developing the city centre.