Smart Living Lab's annual report 2020
© 2020 Thomas Delley
Welcome to Smart Living Lab's annual report for 2020, a year that saw our lives turned upside down by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. This history-making crisis revealed our vulnerabilities as well as our resilience and suddenly redefined the way we live, work, and interact. On the one hand, it forced us to rethink our professional workspaces, in a context where remote working has been widely practiced. On the other hand, it shined a light on the importance of ventilation and air quality inside buildings. These are two of the Smart Living Lab research areas that were brought to the forefront during this time.
We were lucky enough to be able to complete the Winter School ARC-HEST term with three universities from Seoul, just prior to the pandemic's impact being felt across the globe. Thirty students from Switzerland and South Korea, split up into interdisciplinary teams, and conducted a study of different coworking spaces in Fribourg, Bern, and Lausanne. As for ‘Perspectives’, the professional event held at the Blue Hall in September, it provided the opportunity to invite Fribourg companies to discover the Smart Living Lab's accomplishments through concrete examples of collaborations with industry.
Finally, the development of the Smart Living Lab building constitutes a flagship project, not only for the researchers who work there, but also for the entire blueFACTORY area. This will be one of the site's three new buildings, due to start soon. In 2020, the detailed project was drawn up as part of a collaboration between the agents, Bluefactory Fribourg-Freiburg SA and the Smart Living Lab teams. The building will include a number of specific features that will make of it a true research tool. It will also serve as a living lab of international scientific interest and an innovation demonstrator. In short, it's a top-notch platform for collaboration with industrial partners.
Happy reading!
The Smart Living Lab Executive Committee
