Balázs Cserpes

M-DAB 2 – Material intensity of inward development – resource assessment and localization of urban development potentials

M-DAB 2 – Material intensity of inward development – resource assessment and localization of urban development potentials

Annual land consumption in Austria is currently 47 km² (more than the area of Eisenstadt), clearly superseding the target of 9 km²/year, which the current government program aims to achieve in 2030 (WWF 2021 and Bundeskanzleramt 2020). Continued urban sprawl leads to a significant over-consumption of land and primary resources, since new infrastructure for traffic, supply and disposal and so forth have to be put in place. A targeted development of an existing urban environment („inward development“, Grams 2015) leads to a reduction in annual land use and has significant potential for reducing the use of primary resources. To identify areas having a high potential in that respect, one has to assess a variety of suitability factors (e.g. location within the city, existing and targeted building densities, capacities and qualities of existing infrastructure). However, available methods in assessing inward development potentials do not account for resulting building materials (i.e. construction or demolition leading to primary material output or input).

The project aims at localization, quantification and qualification of inward development potentials and shall, for the first time ever, account for material intensities in inward development (amount of primary material) in the context of different development scenarios. It shall furthermore offer several views – from real-estate to city planning – thereby making development assessable from different standpoints. Elaboration of criteria in the above sense and verification using GIS-based automated context analysis will allow for a comparison between different development scenarios (e.g. demolition and new construction, annex construction or retrofitting) under consideration of the urban context in which this development happens. It will furthermore allow for a more systematic approach to location planning using different views. Building on the extended data basis of our previous project M-DAB (FFG No. 873569), this project elaborates on potential profiles of different building and location types according to several parameters (e.g. building period, usage, construction class). In a next step, development pathways for each of these potential profiles are assessed with special regards for minimal resource utilization (land and material resources). In a final step this project employs digital methods (e.g. Machine Learning) to identify similar potential/development patterns within the urban fabric.

M-DAB2 develops a reliable digital model of material intensity which helps with the assessment of inward development potentials using an interactive visualization offering different views (e.g. real-estate developer, city planning authorities). In combination with the database of our previous project, M-DAB, this project offers unprecedented insights into (1.)  attainable saving potentials in primary resource use and landfill volumes, (2.) the ability to compare development scenarios within the built environment and contrast these to greenfield development and (3.) to assess the city-wide potential and impacts of a chosen best-practice method with regards to resource utilization for selected use cases.

Project duration01/2022 – 12/2023
Funded byFFG: Stadt der Zukunft – 8. Call
Lead partnerTU Wien – Institut of Spatial Planning – Local Planning / Simlab
Project websiteLink
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trAILs – Alpine Industrial Landscapes Transformation

trAILs – Alpine Industrial Landscapes Transformation

Industrial change in Europe is also accompanied by the decline of traditional heavy and manufacturing industries in peripheral and less urbanized regions, such as the Alpine Space. This results in huge disused industrial sites: Alpine Industrial Landscapes (AILs).
trAILs - Alpine Industrial Landscapes Transformation - was launched in April 2018 as part of the Alpine Space INTERREG programme with 10 project partners from five different Alpine Space countries.
The aim of the project is to generate significant knowledge about AILs (Alpine Industrial Landscapes) and to develop and test sustainable transformation strategies that are applicable and replicable throughout the Alpine Space. To ensure a multidisciplinary and transnational approach, the project combines the disciplines of spatial and landscape planning, socio-economic sciences and ecological regeneration. In addition, there is direct cooperation with local communities at four pilot sites in Austria (Eisenerz), Italy (Borgo San Dalmazzo), France (L’Argentière-la-Bessée and La Roche-de-Rame) and Slovenia (Tržič).
The main tasks of TU Wien are on the one hand to provide the spatial planning expertise, and on the other hand to set up a database, which collects not only the data on the pilot sites but also information about other brownfields in Austria, Italy, France and Slovenia. The collected data will be presented in the form of a homepage, which also contains an interactive web map.

Project duration 04/2018 - 05/2021
Funded by Interreg Alpine Space Programme
Lead Partner TU München
Project Website https://www.alpine-space.eu/projects/trails/en/
This project is co-financed by the European Union via Interreg Alpine Space
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Danubian SMCs

Danubian SMCs

Danubian SMCs builds upon the cooperation established within the Interreg project DANUrB and aims to bring together students and teachers from various universities along the Danube. The project facilitates the exchange of skills and expertise in various cities and develops a common framework to assess, analyse and plan small and medium-sized cities from Germany to Romania.
A key premise behind the project is that by applying novel and creative teaching approaches, it is possible to establish a common perspective in dealing with the heterogeneity of cities along the Danube. The project facilitates the development of mutual data acquisition, analysis and visualisation frameworks, an exchange on the similar and different challenges cities face in different regions along the river, and a platform for new perspectivesand approaches to tacklethese matters.
The project consortium – led by the Ion Mincu University of Architecture and Urbanism – is developing three Intellectual Outputs as guidelines focussing on innovative and creative teaching methods, data collection and assessment and assessing the inclusive development of Danubian small and medium-sized cities.
During the course of the project, the partner universities and are organising various intensive programmes for students and teachers in their cities. The Simlab set up the course “Sensing and Mapping the City”, focusing on innovative data acquisition techniquies. Student project results can be accessed on the following webpage:
danubiansmcs.project.tuwien.ac.at

The following publications/outputs were produced in the course of the project:

O1: Methodological guidelines & new theoretical and practical methods of interdisciplinary teaching for assessing small and medium sized cities on Danube.
avaiable in English

O2: Report of data collection of good practices and teaching/ learning cross border cooperation on Danube SMCs, for transferring research and innovation in continuing education
available in German, English, Hungarian, Romanian, Serbian and Slovak

O3: Teaching module frame work for assessing the inclusive development of Danubian SMCs
available in English

Project duration 10/2019 - 08/2022
Funded by Erasmus+ Grant Programme of the European Union
Lead Partner “Ion Mincu” University of Architecture and Urbanism, Faculty of Urban Planning, Bucharest
Project Website danubian-smcs.uauim.ro
DANUBIAN_SMCs Project has been (partially) funded by the ERASMUS+ grant program of the European Union under grant no. 2019-1-RO01-KA203-063878. Neither the European Commission nor the project's national funding agency ANPCDEFP are responsible for the content or liable for any losses or damage resulting of the use of these resources.
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MICADO – Migrant Integration Cockpits & Dashboards

MICADO – Migrant Integration Cockpits & Dashboards

The goal of MICADO is to offer an easy-to-use ICT-based assistance tool to help migrants in the first weeks and months upon arrival in European cities. This tool consists of a mobile application guiding newcomers within the topics of housing, labour, education and health. In addition, the project is developing a common migrant data and user management platform for public authorities that facilitates the coordination of processes between migrants, public authorities and civil society organisations.
By bringing together data and information from different sources, the MICADO platform provides insight into key challenges and tasks in an interactive dashboard. This approach helps to identify specific needs of users, leading to improvement of the quality of public services and better management of the resources of cities, authorities, and civil society ogranisations.
The project applies the competence of 15 organisations from five European countries working in the domains of research, administration, and social assistance. Testing of MICADO is being carried out in four European cities – Hamburg, Bologna, Madrid, and Antwerp – but the final product will provide a flexibility to enable a successful application in many other places in Europe.
During the course of the project, Simlab is focussing on spatial data processing and visualisation options and providing input on technical questions, taking account of the specific challenges resulting from complex urban and social processes.

Project duration 01/2019 - 06/2022
Funded by H2020-Programme of the European Commission
Lead Partner HCU Hamburg
Project Website micadoproject.eu
This project has received funding from the European Union’s H2020 Innovation Action under Grant Agreement No 822717.
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M-DAB – Digitise, analyse and sustainably manage the city’s material resources

M-DAB – Digitise, analyse and sustainably manage the city’s material resources

Starting situation, problems and motivation

Vienna is a growing metropolitan region in Austria. Hence, politics and authorities need to draft paths for sustainable and affordable building developments leading to an increased quality of life. Building materials and the way of building construction define the building stock within one urban development phase. Moreover, this also affects the waste we have to deal with in future. Current knowledge about quantities and qualities of bound resources or waste materials is insufficient. 70% (about 44 million tons) of Austria’s annual waste volume originates from the building industry. In addition to environmental interests, waste management tackles also economic interests to implement practicable processes in order to better utilize these resources.

Desired results and findings

In this research project we investigate how digital technologies can support the determination of existing and future material resources in the construction industry qualitatively (building materials and their recycling) and quantitatively (building material quantities). This allows calculating economic parameters of waste disposal and resource recovery on material- and component-specific levels. Based on this, a prediction of their future availability becomes accessible. As a result, higher transparency of follow-up costs in waste removal and material recovery arises. The results of the research project can be used to determine material resources and disposal costs in terms of time and space. Within planning scenarios, it will be simulated how resources can be used in a more sustainable way, how a better recycling balance can be achieved and how the future built environment can be made resource-efficient in terms of economic and environmental aspects. A planning tool is developed, which visually prepares the automated calculation and simulation results. This provides a basis for communication and decision making for different stakeholder groups of the executive planning disciplines as well as the administration and politics (in particular in the areas of waste management, urban development and environmental protection).

Goals and innovative content compared to the state of the art / state of knowledge

Quality and quantities of dormant resources and therefore possible costs and revenues are visualized through calculations and evaluations in the project. Stakeholders involved in executive planning disciplines, their clients, as well as for persons involved in the real estate industry (owners and administrators) will benefit. Furthermore, a process is designed, which enables a practical input/collection of component- and building-specific raw material resources. This enables the determination of construction-specific disposal and recycling costs at planning stage of the building for the first time. Practically this is realized by an extension of the BIM interface IFC. The process designed in the project leads to a constant increase of the level of detail in the database and enables automated simulation and thus precise forecasts over the entire lifecycle process of the building stock. This improves the communication and provides a better decision basis for all stakeholders and the implementation of efficient (on-site) recycling processes.

This project is implemented under the “Stadt der Zukunft” program (6th call) within a proposal of the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG). See also FFG 873569

 

Project duration 09/2019 - 02/2021
Funded by ENERGIE DER ZUKUNFT, SdZ 6th call for projects, 2018
Lead Partner TU Wien
Project Website Link
Report
Posted by Balázs Cserpes in Projects
Vienna Hofburg 3D digital model

Vienna Hofburg 3D digital model

In collaboration with the Department of Art History of the Institute of History of Art and Musicology at the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW), the Architecture Collection at the Albertina and the ÖAW‘s Austrian Center for Digital Humanities, the Simlab is developing an interactive 3D model of Vienna‘s Hofburg Palace from the mediaeval period to modern times as a dynamic visualization tool for use in humanities and technological research. The project is intended as a contribution to the development of the digital humanities, using state-of-the-art technologies to visualize research findings in the field of art history, process them for use in future research projects and make them available for the long term through open access publication.

Project duration 2017 - 2019
Funded by ÖAW (Austrian Academy of Sciences) under the “go!digital” programme
Lead Partner IKM – Institute for History of Art and Musicology (ÖAW)
Project Website Link
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Cyber Blackout Scenario

Cyber Blackout Scenario

Military experts and IT specialists are pooling their know-how with academic researchers from Vienna University of Technology to improve preparedness for a blackout scenario. Under the auspices of TU Vienna‘s doctoral college URBEM (Urban Energy and Mobility System), ten PhD students collaboratively developed the prototype of a virtual city to address urban issues from an economic, technological, social and ecological perspective. This model is to be transferred to the situation centres of the Austrian Federal Armed Forces and optimized using input and expertise from the participants in the doctoral college. The resilience of IT systems will be surveyed, analysed and evaluated in order to safeguard the management capability in the situation centres of the Federal Ministry of Defence and the four major Armed Forces commands in the event of a blackout scenario.

The project is a cooperation between the following TU Wien partner institutes:

  • Faculty of Civil Engineering – Institute of Building Construction and Technology – Research Division of Building Physics and Sound Protection (E206-02) (project lead)
  • Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology – Institute of Energy Systems and Electrical Drives (E370)
  • Faculty of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering – Institute of Energy Systems and Thermodynamics (E302)
  • Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology – Telecommunications (E389)
  • Faculty of Architecture and Planning – Institute of Architectural Sciences (E259)
Project duration 2017 - 2019
Funded by Mission oriented research financed by the Austrian Armed Forces
Lead Partner TU Wien - Institute of Building Construction and Technology
Project Website Link
Posted by Balázs Cserpes in Projects