Projects

In order to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (Paris Agreement), in addition to the switch to sustainable energy sources and the creation of energy-efficient buildings, transport in particular offers a major lever for reducing energy consumption and greenhouse gases. The increasing demand for emission-free mobility (e.g. through e-mobility) but also the supply of heat with heat pumps has a direct impact on the electricity consumption of buildings and settlements. It is still difficult to simulate the effects and interactions of measures that affect the settlement structure (densities, distribution and mix of uses), mobility and transport. Through concepts of sustainable urban development with a focus on qualitative redensification and a mix of uses in settlements, many trips can be replaced by walking or cycling instead of going by car which both reducesenergy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Sector coupling concepts require comprehensible tools for ex-ante evaluation of planning measures at the community level and the linking of domain-specific models (energy, transport) for small-scale forecasting models. Also data availability and data quality for the simulation models used are very heterogeneous at different scales.

Therefore, a digital twin of the municipality of Bruck an der Leitha based on an open data model will be built forthe method development, which can be used to simulate measures to improve the settlement structure within the municipality. For this purpose, forecast models for mobility, the energy network and the building stock aredeveloped or applied and linked via the open data model in order to be able to run through development scenarios and variants based on concrete questions. The forecasting and visualisation options created in the project form the basis for the ex-ante evaluation of measures and policies on the way to a Positive-Energy-District. By identifying and collecting missing data, data gaps are filled for the simulation of precise models inthe specific study area.

A proof-of-concept for an intuitive decision support tool in the form of a digital, interactive 3D model will be created to examine the forecast results and the different scenarios. This will serve as a communication and decision-making tool to improve planning and policy measures to achieve energy efficient and self-sufficient settlement structures. In addition to the development of simulation model modules for specific questions about the effectiveness of changes in the settlement structure (mix of uses, mobility, …) with regard to the energy balance of neighbourhoods, interface definitions and data descriptions for the simulation of entire settlement systems are created. The open data model used allows the results of different simulation models to be compared.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

The aim of the project is to develop innovative, sustainable cultural and tourism strategies to generate valuable economic and social impetus for the Danube region and preserve its cultural heritage. The principal task of TU Vienna is to present suitable spatial & regional planning and research methods and show how these can be implemented in practice. A key factor here is the potential transferability of these planning processes and potential solutions to other regions on the Danube. The results are structured, processed and stored in digital form in a GIS database to ensure knowledge transfer and facilitate further use of the findings. On this basis, a web platform is also being developed to connect stakeholders and project partners along the Danube: https://www.danurb.eu/