Danish urban solutions have great global potential if we manage to collaborate across professional boundaries. For this reason, nine industrial research projects become part of BLOXHUB’s Science Forum – a network that brings together research and practice in urban development.
Denmark has, together with the rest of the Nordic countries, a unique position when it comes to create cities that are good to live in. But if we wish to hold onto that position, we need to collaborate across sectors and expertizes, and to make better use of existing technologies when we develop our cities.
Therefore, Realdania and the Innovation Fund have joined forces to support nine industrial researchers in the field of smart cities and smart buildings for three years.
The selected researchers will function as a research cluster as part of the BLOXHUB Science Forum, and here they will, together with their companies and universities, drive interdisciplinary collaborations and discussions:
“If we want to create good cities, enact a green shift and accommodate the new needs that have come about as a result of rising urbanization, we need to link together different skills so that we can draw on each other’s expertise. We need an interdisciplinary approach to the development of new urban projects and solutions, and we must tie our researchers closer to businesses” says BLOXHUB director, Torben Klitgaard.
With a base in the BLOXHUB Science Forum, the nine researchers, in cooperation with businesses, will develop new ideas and products within the field of smart buildings and smart cities. The proposals are examples of innovation happening at the intersection of research and practice. At the same time, organisations involved in Science Forum get the opportunity to learn from the researchers’ results, creating a foundation for their solutions, based on data and new knowledge.
Tear down the silos and create better cities
BLOXHUB, which is a multidisciplinary innovation hub with 500 open plan office spaces for all those working within the field of sustainable urban solutions, operates to bridge and create joint projects across disciplines and professions, between small and large companies as well as between research and practice:
“We have a huge potential to create some of the world’s best urban solutions and to export them. But it requires us to work together across the board so that we can benefit from all the knowledge and expertise that exists. We need the tech industry to collaborate closely with the construction industry, and we need our small and medium-sized businesses to work side by side with researchers,” says Torben Klitgaard.
Terror-protection and smart city development
One of the companies that now has the opportunity to have an industrial researcher based in the BLOXHUB Science Forum is the VELUX Group:
“The VELUX Group is looking forward to becoming a part of the BLOXHUB Science Forum with a post-doctoral researcher; here we can engage with other companies that are active in researching and developing new business models within the area of smart buildings & cities,” says Lone Feifer, Director of Sustainability and Architecture, VELUX.
The nine projects are wide-ranging. One will develop new guidelines for smart terror protection, balancing technology-based security with how urban space is experienced.
Other projects focus on how information technologies can be integrated into our buildings and homes in order to make them more sustainable, so that they, for example, ‘perform’ better in terms of reducing energy consumption and improving indoor climate.
