The Smart Living Lab Project Kicks Off
© CPI - FRIMA
The official launch of the smart living lab project marks the first step towards the development of a new center of excellence for technological, societal, and legal aspects of sustainability in the built environment. Ultimately, over 80 people will be working on-site in a building designed to push the boundaries of sustainable construction and architecture.
The smart living lab is entering its operational phase. On October 9, representatives from the projects main partners and stakeholders, including the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), the School for Engineering and Architecture in Fribourg (EIA-FR), the University of Fribourg (UniFR), and the Canton of Fribourg came together for the smart living lab’s kick-off event. Upon its completion, over 80 researchers and staff will work in a building that will serve both as a research facility and a demonstrator for innovative concepts and technologies for construction and housing.
With half of the world’s population residing in cities, the need to reduce the energy needed to build and inhabit urban dwellings is becoming increasingly important. In the face of this urban challenge, EPFL, EIA-FR, UniFR, and the Canton of Fribourg signed an agreement in March 2014 to launch a unique, interdisciplinary, and inter-institutional scientific platform to tackle this question from multiple perspectives, drawing on each institution’s strengths and synergies that will emerge through their cooperation. Following the project’s ratification by Fribourg’s Council of State last May, yesterday’s kick-off meeting marks its official launch.
“The launch of the smart living lab represents a decisive phase in the development of our blueFACTORY innovation center, destined to become an integral part of Switzerland's National Innovation Park. Via this technology platform, Fribourg is on its way to becoming a key player in fostering innovation at the service of sustainable development in our country,” says Beat Vonlanthen, President of the State Council of Fribourg.
Scientific, technological, and legal research
At the smart living lab, research on the built environment – in particular the places we live and work – will be carried out at multiple levels. Research groups affiliated to EPFL will address fundamental questions, pertaining among others to energy efficiency, urban design and planning, and technological solutions. EIA-FR will emphasize the integration of innovative processes and technologies to transform, upgrade and optimize existing urban areas and buildings. And among other topics, UniFR will address legal and regulatory challenges in place today that slow down innovation in this field and explore new concepts for a low carbon society.
The platform’s first task will be to design its own building, to be located at the heart of the blueFACTORY SA, an innovation park run by the City and the Canton of Fribourg, on the former grounds of the Cardinal brewery in Fribourg. The smart living lab’s research building and the technology used in its construction will be the subject of extensive research. Ultimately, the building will be a constantly evolving demonstration platform to showcase budding sustainable technologies, providing its users with an opportunity to test its performance first-hand.
Students first
The first project spawned by the smart living lab is already well underway – and students from EPFL, EIA-FR, and UniFR have taken the lead. In the smart living challenge, students with backgrounds in science, engineering, architecture, law, and other fields are forming a team to take part in the next edition of the international Solar Decathlon competition. Perfectly aligned with the smart living lab’s objectives, the Solar Decathlon competition asks students from 20 universities worldwide to design and build a full-scale, fully functional, solar powered dwelling. The prototype, which will be developed, assembled, and tested at the blueFACTORY in Fribourg, will be evaluated according to ten criteria, including architecture, energy efficiency, sustainability, urban design, affordability, and public outreach.
The first researchers from EPFL have already moved into their offices in the EIA-FR premises. A second wave of researchers from the three academic partner institutions is scheduled to move onto the blueFACTORY site in September 2015, once the transformation of the Halles bleues, the former warehouses located at the southern end of the grounds, is completed. While part of these unheated, temporary facilities will be equipped for the development and construction of the Solar Decathlon housing unit, the remainder will host insulated and energetically autonomous wooden boxes that will be used as offices and workshops for the technology platforms.
The smart living lab is a unique platform for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary collaboration and advanced research on buildings and homes of the future. Located at the BlueFACTORY SA, it federates research groups from EPFL’s Fribourg outpost and from EIA-FR and UniFR.