16 October 2019 In Inclusion By Chloé Freslon

How can we build truly intelligent cities?

We met THE smart city specialist. Her name is Dr. Ursula Eicket, and she prefers to focus on bringing empathy to our cities rather than technology. Meet her.

Dr. Ursula Eicker is Concordia University’s new Chair of Excellence in Smart, Sustainable and Resilient Cities. A German physicist, Dr. Eicker is in charge of the research program to create new avenues for cities seeking to become carbon neutral. She will be giving a lecture on “Empathic Buildings” at the end of October in Montreal.

Defining the smart city

For Dr. Eicker, part of her role at Concordia University is to define what is meant by the term “smart city”. In her view, it goes far beyond the implementation of new technologies. Information technology can increase energy savings, but only to a limited extent. There are other things to consider. She explains: “On the one hand, there’s the data retrieved from infrastructures that enable us to understand how our buildings are insulated. On the other hand, and this is more social, even economic, buildings need to consume energy more efficiently. If we continue to build concrete and glass buildings, it won’t work.”

Empathetic buildings

The professor also often talks about empathetic buildings, but what exactly does that mean? The specialist wants buildings that are better adapted to their users, that react to their needs rather than the other way around. A case in point? “Thinking upstream about integrating automatic compost management, instead of it being an afterthought,” explains Dr. Eicker.

Another important component to consider is neighborhoods as places to live: how common spaces are used and how people can communicate within these buildings. Professor Eicker explains that we could enable residents to talk to each other more often by greatly reducing the number of individual vehicles. This would leave more space for people to walk, cycle or sit on a bench. That’s for the outside of buildings. On the inside, it’s a matter of observing how everything is put together. By building smaller apartments, we can make the communal areas bigger. In Switzerland, for example, apartments are smaller but kitchens are bigger, to encourage sharing.

“For me, a smart city goes beyond its cooling system, water management or lighting.” – Dr. Ursula Eicker

And in Montreal?

Living in Montreal has broadened Dr. Eicker’s interests. She now considers not only the energy efficiency of buildings, but also neighborhoods, transportation and how to facilitate communications. The big challenge remains the management of existing buildings: “It’s relatively easy to build well-insulated buildings that consume little energy. The real challenge is for existing buildings that were built decades or even hundreds of years ago. I don’t know of any country that has old buildings that are particularly efficient.”

How does Montreal compare with the rest of the world? The professor explains: “Building efficiency is not fantastic. If you look at downtown, there’s really a lot of concrete. Buildings could be much better.” So it looks like we’ve still got a lot of work to do to achieve the carbon-neutral city we want by 2050.

Dr. Ursula Eicker will be a speaker at the Humanitek event on October 25, 2019.