A city that applies technology and innovation to ensure a cleaner and more sustainable future
In the effort of transitioning to more sustainable energy production and consumption, a smart city project SINFONIA was developed as part of the European Union sustainability agenda. Part of this project includes the deep energy retrofitting of real-estate assets in mid-sized cities in Europe.
Throughout the life cycle of a building, from construction, operation, and demolition, consumes a lot of energy. Accordingly, improving the efficiency of one step of the life cycle can significantly reduce the carbon footprint of the building. One notable way to do this is to practice better passive design that will eventually reduce the energy demand.
The advancement of technology has given way to innovation of smarter materials for buildings. Mohammed (2017) defined “smart material” in building construction as high technological material that responds intelligently to climatic changes and different seasons.
Cities that are citizen-driven show significant success and replicability rate in delivering smart city projects. This is due to the co-creation aspect in the delivery process ensures that the vision is better accepted by the citizen, which in result increases the likelihood of the improvement of the citizen's wellbeing.
Sustainable building practice considers the social, financial and environmental impact of the building throughout the whole life cycle of the building, including the generation of waste during construction.
A study provides evidence that suggests the crucial role cities have in mitigating climate change through their techno-policies choices. Sethi et al. (2020) identifies key sectors that should take a bigger role in adapting and mitigating climate change in cities, including waste, transport, energy, and buildings.
Noise pollution in urban areas is a serious threat to the health and wellbeing of city inhabitants. City government must take deliberate action to prevent the damage to their inhabitants. To help city government as well as other city stakeholder reduce the noise pollution, Bello et al. (2019) invented SONYC (Sound of New York City) a system for monitoring, analysing, and mitigating urban noise pollution with its first case study in New York, one of the busiest and noisiest cities in the world.
In 2011, Malmo, a city in Sweden signed the Climate Contract, a collaboration between the city government and private companies that aims to develop a sustainable and energy efficient city in Malmo. Through this contract, the impact of smart solutions in the City of Malmo to urban governance were studied.
Food security issues usually take the front seat in the discussion of urban food systems. Innovation in Smart Cities could take form in both technology and social. Maye (2019) bridges the discussion of ‘Smart City’ and ‘Urban Food Practice’ and shows how they relate to many more issues and stakeholders and has the potential for more holistic transformation within the urban society through four elements.
Smart growth is a planning concept that aims to build a more compact city design with diverse transportation options and mixed use of land. This concept is considered to address today’s urban challenge of pollution, congestion, long commute time and loss of natural habitat.
Kampung Glintung, a neihbourhood in City of Malang leads the way in initiating a community movement that creates a healthier living environment. This neighbourhood were an area prone to flooding before the community started to build and install Biopore Infiltration Wells in their area.
City of Semarang is one of Indonesia’s largest city in terms of population number. The activity of the 1,8 million people in Semarang produces around 1200 tonnes of waste each day. This becomes a huge problem for the municipality. With the help of the president’s decree, the solution proposed were to use the waste as a source of energy.
Population growth and the development of the city have caused the City of Semarang to be vulnerable to not only floods but also drought. The intense built-up area in the city have caused the heavy water to run off that creates flooding during rainy season and reduced the capacity of ground water absorption that creates clean water scarcity during the dry season.
Our urban built-up area is made up of materials that absorbs heat. The trapped heat caused a phenomenon called Urban Heat Island Effect that make our city’s temperature goes up. The Urban Heat Island Effect exacerbate the air pollution and threatens our health.
