INTERNET OF CITIES – SELF-SUFFICIENT ENERGY DISTRICT
FACULTY: Vicente Guallart, Mathilde Marengo
ASSISTANT FACULTY: Honorata Grzesikowska
As the New Urban Agenda states, in 2050, the world’s urban population is expected to nearly double, making urbanization one of the twenty-first century’s most transformative trends. People, economic activities, social and cultural interaction, as well as environmental and humanitarian impacts, are increasingly concentrated in cities, and this poses massive sustainability challenges in terms of housing, infrastructure, basic services, food security, health, education, decent jobs, safety, and natural resources, among others.
Considering this scenario, and in relation to technological advances towards what is commonly known as the “Smart City”, the Internet of Cities Studio focuses on questions related to energy, the information of energy and the internet of energy. In particular, the studio will delve into its production, storage, and management, as well as the associated services and economic models that come out of advances in this sector.
In the 20th century, high-level availability and energy consumption were international paradigms for development; in the 21st-century, the new paradigm is one of saving and the intelligent use of available resources at an interconnected local level.
Each building has the potential to be linked to an electrical network and capable of producing, consuming and storing energy while sharing it with the other buildings.
From distributed infrastructure for energy management to ecosystems of wireless intelligent plugs, sensors, and energy generation systems, all in one single platform allowing to create logistics that manage buildings energy consumption, generation and storage, students will have the opportunity to design a Self-Sufficient Energy District in Barcelona.
The objective of the studio is to analyze the conditions and context and develop projects to transform the Poble Nou District into a self-sufficient energy district based on connected and renewable energy sources
The students will follow diverse phases towards the development of their project:
1. State of the Art in smart energy production and management systems
2. Context analysis of their specific block in the Poble Nou area
3. Functional analysis of their specific block, cross-analyzed with the State of the Art
4. Proposal of smart production and storage systems for their project site
5. Proposal of a smart management system and associated services
6. Economic analysis and modeling for the project system
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A specific bibliography will be provided to the students, in order to give them the background and contextual information on the topics treated.
