the decision space

architecture | design | engineering

There is a certain tradition when it comes to democracy and architecture. No matter where you might look, the architecture is organised around a “plenary room” (cf. e.g. the following picture from the “United Nations General Assembly” hall in the UN Headquarters, New York City, February 2024).

(c) 2024 by Mojnsen – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Also older versions show the same basic pattern of such rooms for democratic decision making (cf. e.g. “European Council” in Strasbourg, January 1967).

(c) 1967 Engelbert Reineke, German Federal Archive, B 145 Bild-F023908-0002, CC BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE, via Wikimedia Commons

We think, global democracy demands also state-of-the-art architecture aligned with latest communication technology to be a role model for the “Sustainable Development Goals” (SDGs) and also for architecture and design according to the “Planetary Boundaries“.

Global democracy wants to be most personal and most decentralised at the same time and demands rooms or spaces for dialogue, participation, and decision making. Where there is a vivid democracy, there is social debate and these spaces demand rooms for interaction, meeting, face-to-face encounter.

While we have e.g. “churches” as spaces for spirituality (“place of worship”) all over the world with different architecture depending on the according religion (cathedrals, mosques, monasteries, temple, stupa, pagoda, synagogue, etc.), there are currently no decentralised spaces for democratic decision making or global & local citizen assemblies.

While a “crowd” is a more or less fortunate assembly of people, democracy demands a social system of interaction. So the “crowd” develops into a “social system” which interacting people using “good communication”. While such “places of interaction” or “places of democratic decision making” used to be public places like e.g. the village square or the market place or a coffee house, this might have shifted more into “virtual spaces” (e.g. “social media” rooms), mostly dominated by impersonality and/or anonymity. This development jeopardizes the fundamentals of democratic decision making as a process of active, personal, open, and transparent participation within a collaborative decision process. Democracy means in its core the personal responsibility of every person in the community. Global democracy means this for the “global community”.

Except from an architecture for the “global government”, the “global parliament” and the “global justice”, global democracy wants to be as personal and as direct as possible to be experienced as vivid, fruitful, and progressive.

New forms of architecture and design can in our view significantly support these very specific and demanding requirements.

Regular global direct democratic decision making delivers the need, purpose, and the reason to gather together. Global democracy is about one and the same question all over the planet Earth, no matter what nationality. It unites all people from our mother planet Earth on very specific questions (e.g. “Do you want stronger ‘climate action’?” – “Yes” or “No”). And global democracy has the potential to show all the variety and plurality from all the different cultures while being united by these specific global questions.

Places about our future

While e.g. “Museums” are places for the global heritage (cf. e.g. “International Council of Museums“), “the decision spaces” for (global) democracy are rooms for the development of the future. They want to bring together all the historic heritage (from museums, art, culture, and research institutions) as wisdom for healthy decisions towards prosperous future generations.

While e.g. “Universities” used to be vivid places for political debates, core of every democracy, due to commercialisation and resource efficiency programs, they closed e.g. their lecture rooms for the public and lost significantly direct connection to society and their role within democratic decision making. “the decision space” is open and for free.

While e.g. “Libraries” used to be places for political discussions, they are to a large extend digitalised. So we see the strong demand for new forms of spaces, rooms, and architecture, to enable democratic debate. “the decision space” connects to libraries while providing a physical space for interaction.

Places for democratic debate

Furthermore, national democracy lacks the ability to unite and decide on global level. Undoubtedly, global democracy and a “Global Democratic Republic” demands federalism structures to deal with all the complexity and plurality within our societies. Core of global democracy is to unite and enable global decision making processes.

Places with and for innovation

With “the decision space” project, we want to bring together the best architects, designers, communication experts, sociologist, psychologist, historians, and political scientists to explore, create, and develop the architecture for global democracy. At its core, we want spaces for healthy global decision making decentralised all over our mother planet Earth. People all over the Globe connected and interacting together.

According to our core value of love, the architecture supports dialogue, debate and the battle for the better arguments on a peaceful and guided bases. It supports the ease of the paradox between social interaction and vulnerability. There is no healthy social interaction without vulnerability. It demands good leadership with a good culture of speech, a good culture of honesty, a good culture of forgiveness and a good culture of the acceptance of majorities.

According to our mission of developing a healthy and thus sustainable global society, the architecture has to connect or even re-connect the people to nature as our basic source for health (e.g. nothing is more relaxing than a walk in the forest).

Places to support healthy global democratic decision making

So, “the decision space” is a room to support prudent decision making on an individual level and debate on the collective level. It includes state-of-the-art forms of digital support while personal interaction is stimulated. The global network of physical spaces is the core differentiation from the new “World Wide Decision Spaces Network” in comparison to the virtual “World Wide Web” (WWW).

“The decision space” is a place of active participation, a place that gives purpose, and a place to deliver on healthy global democratic decision making.

see “key benchmarks“: