Digital cities..
The area of the city of “connected real estate” will be 5.5 square kilometers, and the population will be 500 thousand people. They plan to make New Songdo one of the largest economic centers in Asia, the capital of high technology, a real “smart city”, completely controlled by electronics. The highlight of the new city is not the layout or appearance of the buildings, although the architects were allowed to do their best here: there will be skyscrapers, golf courses, streets with establishments open 24 hours a day, and boulevards reproducing the incomparable atmosphere of Paris, and 6 kilometers of canals reminiscent of Venice. But the main thing is that the whole city will become a huge computer. Buildings will be able to communicate with each other, their “control centers” will have a common database. All operations that require personal identification — paying for utilities, paying for groceries in the store and bills from the hairdresser, voting in local elections, unlocking the doors of your home and even turning on the car engine — city residents will be able to perform using one smart card.
The project is being implemented by the American company Gale International, one of the largest in the world real estate market, and the South Korean POSCO Engineering&Construction Co. A strategic partner who will help integrate the Microsoft Digital Literacy course and the Microsoft IT Academy program into the Songdo International School curriculum, and will also provide assistance to the U-Life International Institute of Technology, planning to engage in technical training of specialists in the field of the global economy is Microsoft Corporation. Investors intend to invest $25 billion in this construction. This money will be returned a hundredfold, especially if the owners of the city, declared a free economic zone, manage to lure young and ambitious Asian and transnational companies specializing in high technology, the IT industry and the like to New Songdo.
In the very center of the city under construction there is a multifunctional complex of buildings called First World Towers, which consists of four towers of 50, 55, 60 and 64 floors, respectively. The total living area of the complex is 275 thousand square meters. This facility uses a conceptually new ventilation and air conditioning system for residential premises based on water-to-air heat pumps manufactured by LG Electronics. The air is prepared in units located in each apartment and then distributed through air ducts and adjustable air dampers. Unlike the classic scheme with variable air flow, where there is a unitary refrigeration center and a high-capacity central air conditioner, here there are many local sources of heated or cooled air.
Another advantage is the use of low-potential energy sources for heating rooms in the off-season. We are talking about the condenser circuit of water-to-air heat pumps operating in heating mode and supplying warm air to the serviced work areas. This ensures much higher energy efficiency of the building's air conditioning system and greatly simplifies its operation.
New Songdo is being designed from the outset as a “digital city” in which electric and hydrogen-powered vehicles will be connected to a single city network, pneumatic garbage chutes will deliver household waste directly to the methane plant that produces fuel for the engines, and intelligent electronic road signs will automatically change depending on the density of vehicle and passenger flow. New Songdo is becoming a center for testing the latest urban planning concepts on an unprecedented scale.
“Our goal is not to build buildings with ready-made cabling. We want to inspire people to build amazing cities and buildings where technology empowers people with personal lifestyle choices and gives companies unlimited opportunities to innovate,” said Stanley Gale, Chairman and Managing Partner of Gale International. – Do you want to receive information through a computer or display it on the wall of your room instead of a screen? No problem. Do you need personal transport? Please — just insert your New Songdo resident card into one of the 10 thousand hydrogen electric vehicles scattered along the city streets. At the same time, we want the technology to be unobtrusive and dissolve into intuitive services that take into account the natural habits of a person living and working in a modern city.”
“We are confident that digital technologies will have the same profound impact on urban planning as the electricity, water and transportation technologies that have dramatically changed the face of cities over the past 150 years,” said Wolfgang Wagener, who is responsible for urban technologies in Cisco’s Digital Solutions business. of Business (IBSG) and edited the book Connected Real Estate, released by Cisco Press in June 2007. “Urban planning accounts for 10 percent of global GDP, employs more than 100 million people, but still has little use of digital technologies.” Meanwhile, says Mark Golan, vice president, connected real estate program manager at Cisco IBSG, network connectivity plays an important role in transforming the construction industry.
Connected Real Estate is a collection of articles in which leaders in the global construction, design and architecture industries discuss how new technologies are changing the lives of users, optimizing processes, reducing costs and protecting the environment. The collection convincingly demonstrates that construction and digital technologies are becoming inseparable from each other. The following factors contribute to this.
The emergence of the “fourth utility”. Communication infrastructure will be created not after, but during the construction of buildings and will become the “fourth utility”, an integral component of the design and construction of any building, just like water supply, sewerage and electricity. Moreover, all network systems of the building will be combined into a single communication infrastructure operating under IP protocol control.
The evolution of the workplace. It is estimated that about 60 percent of office space is idle: those for whom it is intended do not always work at their desks, but go on business trips, meet with customers, and attend various events. This situation is sure to change: companies do not want to put up with such wasteful treatment of expensive assets. According to Mark Nichols (responsible for workplace optimization at Bank of America), “a half-empty office during working hours means stacks of dollars flying down the ventilation pipe.”
Transformation of the urban environment. Digital technologies affect not only individual buildings, but are also beginning to have an impact on the entire urban environment. The most striking example of this is New Songdo, but this is not an isolated example. The Spanish city of Zaragoza is also creating a digital urban environment. The idea of a digital environment circulates on the market under different names (“ubiquitous cities”, “U-Cities”, etc.), but its meaning boils down to the same thing: basic information systems and touch sensors are initially built into all houses and streets , cars, offices and medical institutions, and all these systems are fully integrated with each other.
Different experts estimate the efficiency of office space in different ways, but, as already mentioned, many experts believe that up to 60 percent of this space is idle. In his book Connected Real Estate, Mark Nichols writes that “offices are sometimes as low as 14 percent occupied. At the same time, in industrial production, the occupancy of premises must be at least 70 percent, otherwise capital construction will not pay off.”
Thus, a fundamental revision of the basic concepts of office construction that have dominated the market over the past 50 years is brewing. “Why should we follow the established rules for the use of office space: create individual workspaces, conference rooms, spaces for social communication, etc., while ignoring new realities? The modern worker is becoming increasingly mobile and spending more time outside the office,” writes Bill Mitchell, another author of the book “Connected Real Estate,” an architecture professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He believes that the widespread penetration of networking technologies and the proliferation of portable and mobile devices makes office space flexible and elastic: “If you have a laptop or a networked cell phone, then any place you want to stay becomes your office space. In this case, all working materials and tools are stored in the memory of your device or transmitted over the network. In such circumstances, the cost of changing jobs is practically nothing. To move to a new office, you simply take your laptop and move it to the new location.”
Mitchell compares the flexibility of the modern office space to the operation of a computer hard drive. The problem with the modern office environment is that the environment changes over time: people move to new jobs, meeting rooms are converted into offices, etc. and so on. At the same time, the rigid, inflexible structure of the building comes into conflict with new requirements and is difficult to adapt to them. A process similar to hard drive fragmentation occurs in the building. “The initial office configuration may be ideal, but it changes over time, so that the original ideas contained in it lose their former meaning,” says Bill Mitchell. “Unfortunately, there is no software in construction to defragment office space.”
In the new building paradigm, office space is designed in several broad categories and is highly flexible. Office cells are starting to behave like computer memory cells. They are either loaded to perform a specific task, or released when the goal is achieved. As a result, space is used much more efficiently than before. The cells are not tied to a specific person and are not idle when the employee leaves for a meeting. Changing your office configuration becomes quick, easy and cheap.
But how does an employee know which cells are currently free and where they are? Bill Mitchell believes that mobile communications will solve this problem. It is necessary to develop sensor technology that will monitor the occupancy of premises and, using mobile devices, direct employees to free cells.
As an illustration, Mitchell gives the example of the so-called “Student Street” on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). At the end of the 90s of the last century, the leaders of the institute implemented a multimillion-dollar project that combined innovative architectural solutions with modern technologies. As a result, a long, winding Student Street was built with many turns and secluded corners where students can meet in an informal setting and retire with their favorite book. The space of this street is flexible and diverse.
Like all students, MIT students love new technologies. According to Wolfgang Wagener, the modern work environment must adapt to the needs of young people. In addition to the word processors and spreadsheets familiar to our generation, it should provide access to instant messaging services, social networks and mobile functions. “The most forward-thinking companies understand this, such as Bank of America, which is building a landmark building in New York City with state-of-the-art energy-efficient features, sustainable design and flexible office space. – says Wolfgang Wagener. – The Bank takes into account the requirements of young people who grew up in the technological age and creates a completely new working environment for them. The new building will dramatically increase the efficiency of expensive office space. In this way, innovative companies are paving the way for a new era of architectural design.”
But the authors of the New Songdo project, including John B. Hines, one of the leaders of Gale International, understand that they will have to overcome many difficulties. There are other similar projects; in Asia alone, the foundations of at least two computer cities have been laid — Cyberport in Hong Kong (2 billion dollars of investment) and Cyberjaya in Malaysia (17 billion). New Songdo must have what every historical city has: character. That is, style and, above all, life.
New Songdo must become a city born to live. This is exactly what managers and experts involved in the project are thinking about. New Songdo is set to represent a new wave of urban megaprojects. If Cyberport and Cyberjaya are to become the hub of the main headquarters of multinational corporations specializing in high technology, then New Songdo is counting on more. It will provide more space for convention centers, parks, schools, cafes, sports and health centers. There will be an opera house and museums. New Songdo will also be open in the architectural sense: in addition to the port, an international airport will be built there.
New Songdo is not the only example of the penetration of high technology into urban planning. In the Spanish city of Zaragoza, a digital urban environment is also being created, the idea of which is circulating on the market under different names, for example “ubiquitous city” (Ubiquitous City or U-City), but the meaning comes down to one thing: basic information systems and touch sensors are initially built into all houses , streets, cars, offices and medical institutions, and all these systems are fully integrated with each other.
The Digital Mile (Milla Digital) is a public high-tech area that is being created today in Zaragoza. The project designers intend to integrate digital resources into the daily life and work of citizens as much as possible, as well as make the appearance of the ancient city unique. Every major city considers it an honor to be called a “city of knowledge.” The fact is that in the largest cities there are certain economic prerequisites for this: for example, in the USA, less than 10% of the urban population is employed in manufacturing, while the need for qualified personnel working in the field of information technology, science, and education is constantly increasing. Therefore, the task of a modern architect is to create a city project equipped with a technical base and corresponding to the specific working conditions of the population. The ability to integrate such innovative systems into the design of existing cities is confirmed by examples of similar projects in New York, Cambridge, Helsinki, Seoul and Singapore.
Zaragoza is a relatively small city with about 700 thousand population and 2 thousand years of its own history — it has a strong industrial base and a stable socio-economic status. However, weak information conditions and a lack of high technology cast doubt on the city's future prosperity. Therefore, the Digital Mile has not only urban planning, but also social significance, since it will give citizens the opportunity to organically acquire the knowledge and skills they need to work in the field of high technology. Work on the Digital Mile began at the end of 2006. The project includes the creation of 4 thousand new apartments, 243 thousand sq. m. m of office and retail space and about 231 thousand sq. m allocated for public spaces, several squares and parks on an area of about 1 million square meters. m. All elements of the project will be connected by a telecommunications network providing wireless communication capabilities. A fiber optic cable will connect all residential properties, which will provide complete control over their condition. The introduction of information technology into everyday life will increase job mobility, giving people the opportunity to do business in any of the parks or cafes.
The architects had a global task to fit the Digital Mile into the landscape of Zaragoza, preserving the historical architectural features of the old city. The designers proposed using traditional Spanish style elements to stylistically link the old and new areas. Thus, in the appearance of the new district, towers, walls marking the boundaries of the city, bridges over rivers and canals appeared, which form an integral part of the city landscape. As for the digital component of the architecture, its use involved solving three problems, the first of which was the widespread introduction of high technologies. All squares, parks and buildings must be provided with wireless access to the Internet and all Digital Mile systems. Local services provide connectivity via mobile phone, and consultants help to contact you directly, for example, with a railway station.
The second task is the creation of digital systems that are capable of monitoring the state of the environment; they are located along the entire perimeter of the territory. Based on the data of this system, sidewalks and buildings are illuminated depending on the time of day and the intensity of natural light. Street equipment — electronic signs and indicators — contain information about nearby parking or transport schedules.
The third, and most interesting, task is the creation of digital landmarks that have practical significance. For example, the facades of houses will be equipped with special moving shields that provide protection from rain or sun. In addition, in Zaragoza you will find “magical” things. One of them will be a fountain — a wall of water, controlled using high technology, which can change the intensity and direction of water jets depending on the wishes of a person or the vagaries of the weather. Water has the ability to move apart in different directions when a child jumps through the fountain, disappear during rain, or create certain, programmable plastic images.
The functioning of all Digital Mile systems will be ensured through the campus, which acts as an intermediary between the infrastructure and its users. The campus consists of two divisions, one of which includes the Digital Mile Museum, the second is an arts and technology center dedicated to research, teaching and organizing exhibitions in the field of communications. Each of the two structures is located in a separate building, but is connected by a special communication system. Acting as a management institute, the campus is designed to meet the need for access to existing and new information. The process of creating a new computer reality is warmly supported by the city authorities, and despite the fact that a tremendous amount of work will need to be done before the project begins to function, the prospect of writing a new page in the history of the ancient city gives optimism to the project participants and residents of Zaragoza.
In Russia, things have not yet come to the point of creating new digital cities “from scratch” and are limited to a rather modest-sized market of high technologies, united by the concept of “smart home” and used exclusively in the luxury housing and hotel business segments. Thus, a new complex “Korston-Kazan” opened in Kazan, recognized as the most technologically advanced hotel in Eastern Europe.
The complex includes a four-star hotel with 220 rooms, a congress center, shopping and business centers, a chain of restaurants and bars, a casino and a cinema with five auditoriums. For its project, the Korston group of companies, specializing in the hotel and entertainment business and leasing of office and retail space, chose a technological solution that combines information systems integrated with each other. The advantage of an integrated solution is a single information space, which, coupled with developed functionality, provides management and service tools. Each hotel room of the complex is equipped with an IP telephone with a color touch screen, which displays reference information in 15 languages (an interactive map of the city, flight schedules, exchange rates, advertising of goods and services, ordering a taxi, a hotel directory, etc.). Integration with an IP television system allows you to display all this information on the plasma panel screen, order movies through the Video-on-Demand system, food in your room and any other services both from the IP phone screen and from the TV screen using a wireless keyboard or remote control. In the restaurants and bars of the complex, waiters take orders using a pocket PC, and the wireless network transmits data to the Food & Beverage system, which significantly saves time for the client and staff. Korston’s future plans include opening a network of similar complexes throughout the Russian Federation.
Assuming the possibility that similar centers could have an expanded range of functions, in addition to permanent or temporary housing for wealthy people, it can be assumed that they could become city-forming enterprises of the new digital era. If earlier, in the era of industrialization, cities were formed on the basis of large-scale industrial production, now, given the general tendency to move production facilities outside the city limits, other needs become relevant. Now the city-forming unit is rather a large shopping center with leisure and food establishments located on its territory. It is shopping centers that accumulate a significant amount of human resources in the form of workers and visitors. By providing such complexes with a conceptual “digital” component and increasing the range of services offered, one can obtain a kind of center of consumer and cultural activity, a kind of city within a city, which could become an experimental platform for adapting high technologies to the mass needs of citizens. Thus, through satisfying consumer characteristics, an urban utopia — a “digital city” can become a reality in which we will live in the near future.
Based on review and analytical materials from Cisco Systems, Inc. and LG Electronics and materials from the Construction and Transport magazine.