Brèves

Experimenting with and creating new work and living spaces for sustainable towns: working towards urbanism 2.0.

“In order to create sustainable towns, they must be structured around the people that actually live there, rather than equipment and development (…) The habitant should be the structuring centre for the sustainable town project.” (Geneviève Ferone, Director of Sustainable development at Veolia Environment)

Managed by this demanding and challenging approach centred around, not aimed towards the town citizen, the "Green and Connected Cities club"(pdf), an innovative cluster of towns, businesses and experts that was launched in Europe and the Mediterranean, is from henceforth concretely moving forwards to propose and experiment with innovative and effective initiatives to make the sustainable and interconnected town a reality in the 21st century.
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On the 26th November, at the European commission forum, ICT2008, that took place in Lyons, ACIDD organised an open work session on the theme of "Sharing initiatives from business leaders and local authorities for a green and connected city."
This meeting was part of the programme for TIC21 and the "Green and Connected cities club"(pdf) led by ACIDD and the Grenoble School of Management, and supported by Europe and the Union for the Mediterranean.
Numerous top-level participants took part; the presence of Charles Secrett, former advisor to the Mayor of London, Charles Breining, Vice president of Schneider Electric, Denis Guibard from Orange and Daniel Kaplan, director of FING and of the programme Villes 2.0 that presented the "manifesto for sustainable and unconstrained mobility" were particularly noted.
Mobility was one of the main themes for this group of ‘green towns’ presented at Lyons. The group consists of 21 urban territories that have united with big businesses to experiment with new uses and technology dedicated to sustainable towns.
The sustainable town is at the heart of many of ACIDD’s initiatives, and a recurring subject in our newsletter that, once again, emphasises this theme with three experts on the subject: Jacques Ferrier, architect, Federico Casalegno, head of the Mobile Experience Laboratory at MIT in Boston and Dave Carter, director of the Manchester digital development agency, MDDA.

- Jacques Ferrier shapes the green city: “This will be a town for the senses”
If architecture is the mirror of the society it comes from, it shows to what extent new technology is responding to sustainable development. Technology dedicated to sustainable development calls for a redefinition of the way people work and live, which obliges a new approach to architectural conception. Jacques Ferrier is one of these architects that re-shapes our universe; famous for his ambitious and innovative projects such as the environmental tower, “Hypergreen”, designed for Lafarge or EDF’s ‘Concept Office’ building. His architecture responds to the stakes of sustainable development. Multi-functioning buildings, new materials and new aesthetic approaches, this pioneering individual is often rewarded for his audaciousness. But it is in China that he is pursuing his revolution with the ‘Sensual City’ pavilion, a true demonstration of creativity and French high-technology, that will be at the heart of the 2010 Universal Exhibition organised in Shanghai.
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- MIT Mobile Experience Lab: A vision of the future
Federico Casalegno is the director of the MIT Mobile Experience Lab and associate director of the MIT Design Laboratory. A social scientist with an interest in the impact of networked digital technologies on human behaviour and society, he both teaches and leads research at MIT, focusing especially on the area of rethinking and designing interactive media to foster connections between people, information, and physical places using cutting-edge information technology. Most recently, he is leading a new strategic alliance with the Fondazione Bruno Kessler in Trento, Italy, to build a pioneering sustainable connected home.
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- The MIT multiplies its territorial partners: an example in the province of Trento
The MIT Mobile Experience Lab, within the Design Laboratory, signed a 3 years strategic alliance with the Fondazione Bruno Kessler on July of 2008. The alliance has been promoted by the Province of Trento, Italy. Their goal is to carry out advanced research in sustainable connected homes, including subtopics of renewable energy systems, sustainable architecture, and also social sustainability and connected information system to optimize home behaviour and peoples' life.
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- Manchester: “In the working-class areas, only a quarter of the population have access to the web.”
MDDA is responsible for developing and implementing the Digital Strategy for the Manchester city-region. This armed wing of territorial economic services is led by Dave Carter who here delivers his experience of the green and connected city.
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