Everyday we get more and more fascinated with the possibilities that social media offers. We were therefore a bit surprised with our Queen Beatrix's Christmas speech, in which she stated that the social gap between people in our individualizing society is not filled up, but even widened by “virtual encounters”. As many others, we counter her statement and are convinced that social media can positively affect our social scope and behavior.



source www.fredcavazza.net

Being young architects, we also see large potential in the implementation of social media in our own discipline and in real-estate development. Therefore we constantly look for ways of incorporating it in our design process.
Our first experiment of using social media in a building process was our Online Community Building. This project was based on an online environment in which potential buyers meet and choose their neighbors, create their own floorplans and facade, and are able to suggest and vote for collective program. In this case social media empowers end-users by facilitating co-creation and generates social cohesion before touching a stone.




Although this idea has not been tested in real life, we wonder whether social media can be used in an even earlier state of the development process. We know social media is the way to find like minded people. Reading online-profiles we know peoples interests, whereabouts and social connections before meeting them. This information is already used by smart advertising firms such as google but we sense that there is also great potential for real estate development and especially for co-creation collectives.
We will soon extend this post with our findings and research on this subject. Of course we are very open to any contribution. Let's try to get some open innovation going!