Organizing Smart Buildings and Cities

Cities are complex forms of organizations. The phenomenon of smart cities (SC), smart universities (SU) and smart buildings (SB) is expanding and information systems constitute organizational frameworks for this development. In this chapter, we will come back on the evolutionary approach of SC and develop what is at stake. Then we will explain why technology enables a more sustainable response to urbanization challenges. We will describe living laboratories and SU experiences. Finally, we will address an important building block of this ecosystem, which is SB.

In this paper we investigate the underlying theoretical and practical dimensions of the smart city concept. Exploring the smart city concept is necessary for understanding its meaning and usefulness. We begin by framing the problems faced in cities, i.e. urban issues, as wicked problems: complex and intractable. Then, a review of the meaning of a smart city is carried out in order to reach a holistic working definition of the concept. We also provide a description of how stakeholders are organized in providing smart-city-based solutions to urban problems in cities. A smart city case study situated in Glasgow, Scotland is developed. By doing so, we provide a new and practical perspective to comprehend the meaning and the use of the smart city concept in addressing urban problems by synthesizing important success factors.

The purpose of this article is to set the groundwork of data-driven decision making. Currently, there are widespread discussions on how society is shaped and changing due to the increased use of data for decision making in the private and public sector. Central to this form of decision making is big data and open data. We present a critical review of big data: it’s characteristics and sources. We also provide a critical review of open data by delineating its difference to big data, i.e. the types and sources of open data. We argue that if the conditions are right, big data can be open data—and vice versa. Most importantly, we present where and how big data can be used applied in various areas of society, e.g. in smart cities. By carrying out this review, we outline the composition of data and where and how it can be applied in society at large. Ultimately, given the accessibility of data, we critically review a fast-moving ecosystem where end-users and decision makers can be guided by data.

This paper is dedicated to sustainability and smart mobility in universities. In the recent period called Industry 4.0, digital technologies require the overall society to change. Studying the impact of smart society, in general, and of its components such as smart mobility has become increasingly crucial. This article fills the literature gap discussing smart mobility from a socio-economic perspective with the aim of better understanding the state-of-art of this phenomenon as well as to contribute to the debate about smartness in universities. Using a multi-case approach, it suggests a new way of analyzing smart mobility from a socio-economic perspective, in order to investigate the strategies and the best practices in the Italian context.

The methods of the social sciences (geography and present-day history) can be put to good use in a synthesis on the Smart Project in La Rochelle. The methodology applied submits to the analysis of numerous sources from the actors involved in this project, but also scientific communications dealing with the current proposal in La Rochelle (LR). It also facilitates the development of various disciplines (economics, management, computer science, ecology, sociology and other engineering, human and social sciences). The concepts of sustainability and intelligence are at the heart of this program and the issue of data allows them to be thought of jointly. This work therefore sets up an analysis aimed at clarifying the relationships to these notions and contextualizing them through various direct sources and testimonies. A comparative perspective will be put in place in relation to a similar project, in this case that of Barcelona, in order to bring out the relative deficiencies and assets of the case of La Rochelle. The case of the La Rochelle Smart City project allows a more detailed understanding of the links between urban digitization and social sciences and humanities.

Smart city arouses the image of metropolis or even megacities, and many Smart city models aim at enhancing the performances of big cities. Yet in Europe, it is necessary to deal with a fact: most people dwelling cities, live in Medium-sized cities. These cities therefore create an important critical mass, both because they are very numerous, and because they suffered the greatest criticalities in terms of environmental pollution, life quality, mobility and also building sustainability. Beginning from the scientific literature and the rankings of Medium-sized cities, as well as the concept of Functional Urban Area, this research deepens medium city as a territorial issue, with an urban attractive core, and a wider complex landscape. The boundaries definition of a medium city, and the analysis of its geomorphological, infrastructural and functional criticalities, may be the key for a new interpretation of Smart strategies for their sustainable development. The research output is the proposal of an innovative tool, addressed to leaders and planners of the Smart Medium-sized city. This tool may allow a critical reading of the city, by georeferencing material and immaterial data about the city and its functional area, crossing open data and morphological characters in an interactive dashboard. After the case history of European Medium-sized cities, the research focuses on the role of Parma, Italian Medium-sized city, with a proposal about a future smart development, for consolidating results obtained during 2020, with the cultural leadership of the Italian Cultural Capital award.

The word intelligent to talk about a city, building and so on, is so overused today that one carefully avoids delimiting its contours. We admit the existence of varied and variable intelligences based on our knowledge, requirements, and necessities. Among living beings confronted with the environment, some have a more efficient form of intelligence than others. We refer to three concepts as developed by Gilbert Simondon: associated milieu (2005a, 2005b); concretization (1958); mécanologiques generations (2005a); invention (2008). After a very short analysis of the today’s French Thermic Regulation we note the difficulties to exceed the question of standards, and be able to go beyond the addition of technical devices to respond to the question. To go further we need to abandon the concept of environment and rethink the whole complex systemic problem using the concepts of milieu and associated milieu. The presentation of the different generations of technical objects (Lafitte in Réflexions sur la science des machines. Paris, 1932) helps us to locate today’s main challenge. The reasoning from the milieu, enables us to reach the concretization of apparatus and obtain intelligent solutions gathering several co-actors interacting in the same network: the external milieu, the inner one (stricto sensus building), the apparatus, and the inhabitants, sharing information.

Energy is an important aspect of a building that is monitored in real-time in smart and green buildings. Smart metering information systems provide new monitoring tools to encourage a two-way interaction between the building manager and its residents. Dynamic energy pricing; incentives; feedbacks or nudges can be introduced to encourage energy demand reduction and energy efficiency. We study the impact of a bonus system to reward responsible consumption of energy in the controlled environment of a lab experiment. Our results show that the bonuses act as focal points for subjects in their energy consumption. The least virtuous residents all reached the second bonus anchor. However, the intrinsic motivation of the soberest residents is partially crowded out by the bonus, stressing out the importance of taking into consideration behavioural factors. We conclude with policy recommendations.

Kardham group offers services regrouping 3 main activities: real estate consultancy, architecture and development. Our group has decided to integrate the principles of circular economy in projects, more particularly in development projects. We therefore approached actors that were already present in this market and our operation teams to perform a first diagnostic. Apart from the evident opportunities that this approach provides, there are obstacles that we seek to identify in order to better overcome them. Despite the potential that circular economy represents and the presence of several actors in this domain, what are the obstacles that exist in the implementation of this type of operation? First of all, there are behavioral obstacles. Mentalities are evolving concerning environmental performance but there lies a need to convince the decision makers that circular economy represents a long-term value creation for the enterprise if integrated into the value chain. In addition, there are regulatory and legal obstacles. In the absence of adaptation to certain materials, we observe that they will be excluded from the reintegration market (absence of procedure reports attesting the performance). The lack of insurance and guaranty of certain equipment technique can also slow down the reuse and reintegration. If we want a holistic approach to circular economy, we think it is imperative that the market doesn’t get compartmentalized… Finally, there are obstacles that exist in the implementation: we are only at the early stages of this step having very fluctuant volume of accessible materials. On the other hand, technical information on these materials often does not exist. We have feedback from building professionals based on their experience explaining that the diligent removal and refurbishing of materials involves overtime to integrate them into projects.

Since the second World War, technological (r)evolutions have been further integrating our societies, causing a disruption not only in our life styles and know-how but also mentalities. Environmental awareness is a good example. Nowadays, everyone wants to be able to produce his/her own “green” and local energy. However, the French power grid, very centralized and hierarchical in its functioning, and requiring a lot of human intervention along its operations, was not thought of in this perspective of decentralization of energy. One of the solutions would be of course to create a new power grid. Another would be to use Information Technology to pilot the current power grid in a “smarter” way: this represents the Smart Grid. It is therefore a ubiquitous computer network parallel to the electrical network which must be built for communication. The Catholic University of Lille, a university in the heart of the city with a substantial and long-standing real estate heritage, has taken up this issue as part of its LiveTREE program.