Zurich – ETH researchers have developed a platform that creates 3D models of cities from images and videos. The technology can also be used to analyse when parking spaces become free. Several spin-offs have already emerged out of the research project.

The new technology platform VarCity evaluates and combines aerial photographs, 360-degree panoramic images and even standard photos and videos from YouTube or other social networks and internet platforms to create 3D models of cities. Thanks to machine learning algorithms, the technology is able to recognise image content such as buildings, streets, bodies of water, people and cars. By evaluating webcam data, it can even tell which streets are one-way only.

“The whole thing goes so far that we can perform a highly detailed analysis of traffic flows on the street and also measure pedestrian traffic, even in real time depending on the application,” VarCity project manager Hayko Riemenschneider said in a statement from the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich. The system also makes it very easy to count traffic as it can now be done with cameras alone.

“Our technology is dynamic. It brings life, people and vehicles to 3D city models, which is one of its major advantages over well-known applications such as Google Street View,” added Riemenschneider. 

Another advantage is that the algorithms generate anonymised information based on image data. Pedestrian flows and vehicle traffic can be shown by avatars, making the system compatible with data privacy. To showcase their work, the ETH Zurich researchers have created a 3D model of the city of Zurich, which they are now presenting in a video.

Thanks to VarCity, several spin-offs have already been founded. For example, Parquery uses this technology for its parking management system, which works exclusively with cameras installed near parking spaces and does not require parking space sensors. It shops app users in real time when parking spaces become free.

The spin-off Spectando offers virtual building inspections for the real estate market, while Casalva conducts virtual damage analyses on buildings for insurance companies. Yet another spin-off is UniqFEED, which uses methods to identify perimeter advertising and individual players during television broadcasts of sports events....

Zurich – The canton of Zurich plans to hold networking events on a regular basis for Chinese companies based in the canton as well as Zurich companies interested in China. The events will help improve market knowledge and promote cultural exchange.

More and more Chinese companies are setting up office in Zurich. For example, the Zurich branch of the China Construction Bank has been active as the European renminbi hub since the beginning of 2016. Other banks have also announced plans to open offices here, as the canton of Zurich writes in a statement. In addition, around 20 Chinese companies from the ICT or energy sector with businesses in the canton are contributing to the business region’s added value. At the same time, many Swiss companies are already active in China with branch offices. 

For foreign relocations to succeed, entrepreneurs need to understand the local market in detail. Mutual cultural understanding is also a key success factor. A new series of events, launched by the cantonal business development agency in the Department for Economic Affairs, aims to address these two issues. Alongside networking and exchange opportunities, it will also offer practical information.

The first event was held on Friday evening where governmental councillor Carmen Walker Späh welcomed the Chinese consul general Gao Yangping and several Chinese and Swiss companies....

Nairobi – The 26th Governing Council of UN-Habitat came to a successful conclusion on Friday. Highlights included a USD 11 million commitment for improving life in slums and a new housing profile for Afghanistan to cope with the influx of IDPs.

The 26th Governing Council of UN-Habitat was held in Nairobi, Kenya from 8 to 12 May. Attended by some 650 delegates, it was the first meeting of the Governing Council to be held after the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the New Urban Agenda, which sets the global strategy around urbanisation for the next two decades, according to a UN-Habitat statement.

One of the session’s first tasks was to elect the president of the governing council. India was unanimously elected to the two-year post, and the country’s housing and urban poverty alleviation minister, Venkaiah Naidu, will serve on behalf of his country. Naidu called his election recognition of India’s efforts in the field of inclusive and sustainable urban development such as the Smart Cities Mission, a government programme to develop 100 cities across the country that are citizen friendly and sustainable. 

During the session, a new USD 11 million was secured for a programme to improve the living conditions of slum dwellers in African, Caribbean and Pacific countries. The will cover the years 2017-2021. Other highlights from the week-long session include an Urban Peace Lab Program to offer training to former youth combatants in Colombia, and a new housing profile for Afghanistan to create around 40,000 new housing units to cope with the rapid urban population growth brought about by the influx of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), the growing number of returnees and rural migrants, and natural population growth....

Edmonton – The city of Edmonton, Canada has been selected to host the first ever Cities and Climate Change Science Conference. Co-sponsored by the IPCC, the conference will support implementation of the Paris Agreement and New Urban Agenda.

Edmonton is known outside of Canada for its hockey team – the Edmonton Oilers – while the province of Alberta has made headlines for its polluting tar sands. But the province’s capital city will put on a decidedly greener face in March 2018 after it beat out nine other cities to be selected as host of the first-ever Cities and Climate Change Science Conference, sponsored by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). 

“Cities are on the front lines of the fight against climate change,” Shannon Phillips, Alberta’s minister for climate change, said in a statement. Her comments were echoed by Debra Roberts, co-chair of the IPCC Working Group II, who said that “cities around the world need science to help them better understand” the climate action options required by the 2015 Paris climate accord. 

The conference – which is supported by a diverse group of organisations calling themselves #CitiesIPCC, such as C40, ICLEI, UN-Habitat and UNEP – promises to be a “pivotal milestone in developing the global understanding of how climate change will impact cities and the role of cities in tackling climate change”. The conference outcomes will help member states, mayors and citizens deliver on the Paris Agreement, the New Urban Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)....

Dübendorf ZH – The construction robot In situ Fabricator is now being used to build a new unit in the NEST research building. The visionary architecture project was digitally designed and planned – and it will now be digitally built.

In situ Fabricator took a symbolic act last week when it created the first weld for dfab house. The dfab house project is the next unit for NEST, the modular research and innovation building of the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa) and the Aquatic Research Institute (Eawag) in Dübendorf.

Researchers will use dfab house to research how buildings can be digitally printed from bottom up. Other robots will be used alongside In situ Fabricator as well as large-scale 3D printers. In the coming weeks, the robot will start construction of a load-bearing, formwork-free concrete wall.

Once completed in the summer of 2018, dfab house will serve as a living and working space for visiting researchers of Empa and other NEST partners. The three-storey building will highlight new forms of digital control and communication, extending the smart home concept with advanced digital interconnectivity for the benefit of its inhabitants, explains Empa in a statement. At the ground-breaking ceremony, Balz Halter from digitalSTROM presented how dfab house can contribute to reducing energy consumption and improving the overall living experience for residents.

dfab house is well positioned to become a flagship project for digital fabrication and digital living, says Empa. It was initiated by the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich and the Nation Center of Competence in Research (NCCR) Digital Fabrication....

Moskau – One tenth of Moscow’s residential space is set to be demolished in the coming years. The old, prefabricated buildings will be replaced by new buildings – all against the will of the residents.

Many of Moscow’s residents are worried about a new law that will allow cities to demolish entire residential blocks while severely limiting legal avenues for residents to oppose this. As the daily newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung reported, the idea of building new apartment blocks in Moscow comes from the Russian president Vladimir Putin and will now be carried out by Moscow’s mayor Sergey Sobyanin.

By the end of 2018, Moscow plans to demolish 8,000 residential buildings with 600,000 flats, which corresponds to one tenth of the city’s residential space. Many of these are prefabricated buildings built in the years following the Second World War. The new buildings will cost around CHF 60 billion to construct.

Residents initially embraced the idea, but this has since given way to concerns, and there are more and more protests at public hearings. This is because only a third of the new residential space will be rented to the current residents of the prefabricated buildings. The rest will go towards the city’s new residents. Those affected now fear that they will have to move from their affordable flats into expensive ones or switch to high-rise buildings on the outskirts of the city.

The city in contrast calls this an improvement for its people as it will create not only new buildings but also a better infrastructure. Plans include pedestrian zones, and the new residential buildings will be designed individually....

Nairobi – Just six months after it was adopted, the ideas contained in the New Urban Agenda are trickling down and can be found in a variety of UN programmes, says the head of the UN’s urban issues agency.

Joan Clos, the executive director of UN-Habitat, is pleased with the successes in the six months since the New Urban Agenda was adopted at least year’s Habitat III summit in Quito. Key among those is that the New Urban Agenda was unanimously endorsed by the General Assembly in December, he told Citiscope in an interview. Equally important is that the New Urban Agenda is now fully integrated with the process of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), elevating urbanisation for the first time as one of the pillars of sustainable development. 

According to Clos, the ideas found in the New Urban Agenda are taking root and appearing in a range of UN programmes. The urban aspects of climate change were recognised during the Paris Agreement negotiations and that momentum continues to this day. Similarly, the International Organisation for Migration and the World Bank are holding events spotlighting the links between migration, tourism and urbanisation.

Clos dismissed concerns that the UN’s independent assessment of UN-Habitat will influence implementation of the New Urban Agenda. As he told Citiscope, “implementation of the New Urban Agenda is the responsibility of the member states, as signatories of the commitment”. The assessment is rather meant to find ways to strengthen UN-Habitat as a tool to support member states in implementing the New Urban Agenda....

Vienna – An old Japanese tradition of sprinkling water on the ground can reduce the urban heat island effect by up to 8 degrees Celsius. Authorities are now trying to revive the technique as a ‘smart way to stay cool’.

The Japanese developed a water sprinkling technique called uchimizu in the 17th century to reduce heat in urban areas. Water was poured around houses, temples and gardens to settle the dust and cool the surfaces and the air. 

As part of her PhD research, she set out to determine the precise cooling effect of uchimizu using a 3D Distributed Temperature Sensing (DTS) system that records air temperature in one specific cube metre of air. With 53 horizontal levels and more than 35,000 measurement points, the cube produces very precise measurements in time and space. 

Her experiments revealed that uchimizu has a cooling effect of up to 8 degrees Celsius, with the greatest cooling at ground level as that is where the water is poured. But it can still cool the air by up to 2 degrees Celsius at 1.5 to 2 metres above the ground, or the height of an average person. 

Uchimizu has the big advantage that it promotes citizen participation as anyone can pour water onto pavement without requiring permission from the authorities, says Solcerova. It also increases the awareness of city dwellers and encourages them to solve heat stress and save energy. Finally, it can be used anywhere in the world where rainwater is easily harvested. ...

Lausanne – Smart City Piano, an analytical tool developed by Swisscom and the business school IMD, has been fine-tuned based on the experiences of smart city projects that have already been conducted.

The Swiss telecommunications provider Swisscom and the business school IMD joined forces two years ago to develop the Smart City Piano, a tool that aims to assist cities become more innovative and smart. Since then, they have conducted a range of projects based on the Piano for cities and regions. 

According to a Swisscom statement, the experiences gained from these projects demonstrate “the need for public authorities to have a more detailed methodology to define, select and implement the most promising projects”. The partners therefore interviewed numerous project managers in public and business entities to produce the study Smart City: Six Steps to Successfully Transform Your City.

The cooperation with the authorities “allowed us to confirm a number of assumptions and to find solutions to identified problems, such as governance issues for instance,” said Raphaël Rollier, head of the Smart City programme at Swisscom.

The study also provides urban leaders with advice on how to practically apply the Smart City Piano. “The proposed method allows resources to be concentrated on initiatives that make a concrete contribution to the objectives set,” said Blaise Vonlanthen, head of consulting at Swisscom.

Prior to collaborating with Swisscom, IMD had assisted companies in planning their digital transformation projects. However, when it comes to transforming the public sector “many rules of the private sector do not apply,” said Michael Wade, a professor of innovation and strategy at IMD. 

With its deeper understanding of the specific dynamics of digital transformation in the public sector, the new study will help cities and regions “accelerate their digital transformation”....

The Seastading Institute has been working on its vision of floating cities since 2008, as is explored in an article by the Swiss Tages-Anzeiger. The Institute plans to hold a conference on the topic in Tahiti from 15 to 18 May 2017, at which the President of French Polynesia, Edouard Fritch, will be among the speakers.

The advantages of floating cities have already been tried and tested on a range of different floating buildings. Above all, this will quite simply mean more space is available in those areas where it is in short supply on densely populated land. The use of floating hotels is already common today where there is insufficient space on land, during trade fairs, for example. The Hotel OFF Paris Seine is anchored on the Seine in Paris. The hotel’s architect Gérard Ronzatti feels there is a great benefit to its sustainability. The Tages-Anzeiger reports that embankments are not required and the shores remain unaffected. Materials can also be transported on the water. In Germany and the Netherlands, the use of floating hollow concrete blocks or concrete pontoons is being combined with traditional housing construction to develop floating houses.

However, there are some legal questions that must be addressed when it comes to creating floating cities at sea. For example, these communities would form outside national borders in international waters. Consequently, the aspect of jurisdiction would need clarification beforehand....

An article by World Architecture News states that One Bangkok is the largest private sector development project that has been launched in Thailand to date. Architectural firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM) is currently working on final plans for the development with its Thai subsidiary and cooperating with a team of architects and spatial planners from both Thailand and around the world for the project.

Following completion, an estimated 60,000 people will live and work in the vertical village. The vision for One Bangkok is to establish a place that promotes wellbeing in a dense urban environment. The eight hectares of public plazas and landscaped green spaces which are planned will help make this vision a reality.

The intention is also for One Bangkok to gain LEED Platinum certification. In addition, the construction will be utilising sustainable design and will focus on reducing energy and water consumption. For example, the choice of building materials and the design of green spaces will enable rainwater to be used in a way that preserves and replenishes the precious resource of water. The design of the high-rise buildings is also tailored to the local climate to reduce the ecological footprint of the district....

Chicago – Public buildings in Chicago will be powered by 100 per cent renewable energy by 2025. Mayor Rahm Emanuel calls this a clear signal that the city is committed to renewable energy.

Chicago’s mayor Rahm Emanuel has announced that the city will power all of its public buildings with renewable energy by 2025. This will make the Windy City the largest major city in the US to have 100 per cent renewable energy for its public buildings.

“By committing the energy used to power our public buildings to wind and solar energy, we are sending a clear signal that we remain committed to building a 21st century economy here in Chicago,” Emanuel said.

Collectively, the public buildings in Chicago used nearly 1.8 billion kilowatt hours of electricity in 2016, amounting to eight per cent of all electricity use in the city. This is equivalent to powering around 295,000 Chicago homes.

Chicago has already taken considerable strides in recent years to embrace renewable energy and build what it calls “a 21st century economy”. 

For instance, Emanuel made Sunday's announcement on the rooftop of the Shedd Aquarium, which has already installed over 900 solar panels in a bid to reduce its energy use by 50 per cent by 2020. 

And in 2013, the city eliminated coal from the over 1 billion kilowatt hours in electricity that it buys each year....

Zurich – The canton of Zurich has launched the public consultation on the cantonal design plans of Zurich’s central university district. The public consultation for the partial revision of the construction and zoning of the area has also begun.

The Zurich cantonal council approved the structure plan for the Zurich central university district (HGZZ) on 13 March, and the next steps for creating the planning principles on the area have now been triggered, according to a statement from the canton of Zurich. The public consultation on the cantonal design plans for the University Hospital Zurich, the University of Zurich and ETH Zurich began last Friday and will last until 12 June. 

The documents made available for review include maps, regulations, explanatory reports and an environmental impact report on the University Hospital Zurich main area. Feedback and objections will be dealt with in summer 2017. The canton also expects the results of a study on the urban concept of Zurich’s central university district at that time, and both will be incorporated into the revisions of the design plans.

In addition, the city of Zurich has started the public consultation on the partial revisions of the Construction and Zoning Ordinance (BZO) for Zurich’s central university district. The revisions will adapt the 1963 regulations to the current structure plan. ...

Nairobi – Digital technologies alone are not enough to ensure smart urbanisation, warns Joan Clos, the executive director of UN-Habitat. Instead, a ‘smart city’ is a city that uses technology in a ‘smart’ way to reinforce what he identifies as the five pillars of urbanisation.

As the executive director of UN-Habitat Joan Clos wrote in a recent opinion piece, the major conclusion of Habitat III is that the model of urbanisation of the past couple of decades “has been far from ‘smart’ and sustainable”. Even the rapid growth of communication and digital technologies is not enough to ensure smart urbanisation. In fact the contrary: “A city that has an advanced model of technology but is badly planned, with outdated legal frameworks or lacking a good financial model, will only aggravate the dysfunction in the city,” warns Clos.

This is why Habitat III, which was held last October in Quito, Ecuador, concluded with the adoption of the New Urban Agenda, “an action-oriented plan based on” five fundamental pillars of sustainable and smart urbanisation. These are: (1) national urban policies that ensure sustainable urbanisation is led by national governments working closely with subnational governments, (2) establishing rules and regulations that ground urbanisation in the rule of law and force us to be more efficient about it, (3) urban planning and design that look at the relationship between the design of buildable plots and public spaces, (4) investing in a financial plan for urbanisation that takes into consideration municipal functions (such as an urban land registry and building codes), basic services such as sanitation and waste management, and complementary services such as education, safety and health, and (5) local implementation by local governments.

As Clos writes, ICT can play a large role in the deployment of the five pillars toward good urbanisation, and a smart city requires the use of technology to support these pillars. But "technology itself is not the cure-all of development", a smart foundation is....

The canton of Zurich, the local municipalities, the Zurich Planning Group Glattal and Zurich Airport AG have agreed on the Airport City development plan.

According to a joint statement, the design seeks to increase the location quality of the airport region between Zurich North and Kloten. More specifically, Airport City includes the municipalities as well as the adjoining areas beyond the municipal boundaries, extending from the Glattbrugg rail station to Balsberg in Kloten.

The project partners seek to increase the region’s quality of public space and quality of life, and offer a multi-functional mobility network. As the project partners write in the joint statement, the area should live up to its “good and central location” and “create added value for all”.  

According to the plan, the transport system will be expanded in 2017 and 2018 and the outdoor space upgraded under the leadership of the municipalities of Opfikon, Kloten and Rümlang. The project partners intend to exchange with each other regularly over the course of the work....

New York – Abu Dhabi will host the tenth session of the World Urban Forum in 2020. It will be the first forum to be held in the Arab region and will focus on implementation of the New Urban Agenda.

The capital of United Arab Emirates, Abu Dhabi, has been chosen to host the tenth session of the World Urban Forum (WUF10) in 2020. The announcement was made by the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) as convener of the World Urban Forum.

WUF10 will be the first forum to be held in the Arab region. Dr Joan Clos, UN Under-Secretary-General and UN-Habitat Executive Director, highlighted the importance of organising WUF10 in a region that has experienced rapid urbanisation in recent years and is now focusing on directing urban development in a sustainable manner.

Like the ninth session of the World Urban Forum, which will be held in Kuala Lumpur in February 2018, WUF10 will be particularly relevant to the implementation of the New Urban Agenda, which was adopted in Quito last year.

“WUF9 and WUF10 are key platforms where we will be able to review how we are all managing sustainable urban development, achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and implementing the New Urban Agenda,” said Clos.

The New Urban Agenda specifically recognises the World Urban Forum as a platform to report in the implementation of the Agenda and incorporate input from multilateral organisations, civil society, the private sector and academia. Described as the world’s “premier conference on urban issues,” the World Urban Forum has been convened by UN-Habitat since 2002. ...

Exactly 25 years after Expo.02, a new Swiss national exposition will take place in 2027 – and this time at the Dübendorf airfield. At least, this is the idea being floated by the new association X-27 Rendez-vous der Schweiz.

According to a statement from X-27, the ‘X’ stands for “a place, a time and thousands of encounters”. It is meant to symbolise the Swiss cross “as a starting point for the interplay of society”. The exposition should focus on people and their relationship to the real and digital environment. As “playfields”, the initiators envisage thematic pavilions and open arenas.

As the X-27 association explains, the Dübendorf airfield – “which by definition as a federal property belongs to all residents of Switzerland” – is perfectly suited for the event. At the same time, the exposition would be a good interim use of this valuable area, which is currently in the midst of being developed into an innovation park.

The initiators are allowing for a budget of CHF 800 million to hold the 2027 national exposition in Dübendorf, half of the costs of Expo.02. The X-27 project should be a federal project with the participation of cantons and the private sector, according to the association. Until this is decided, the group of initiators will commit to the project by turning to crowd financing to finance it themselves.

Association president Peter Sauter was involved in Expo.02, as were his co-initiators: architect and set designer Sergio Cavero, who headed the exhibition Arteplage Yverdon-les-Bains, and the media specialists Marina Villa, who was the former press officer of Expo.02....

Cazza developed the new technique in response to market demand. “Developers kept asking us if it was possible to build a 3D printed skyscraper. This led us to begin researching how we could adapt the technologies...

Leilani Farha, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva earlier this month that the “financialisation of housing” is one of the greatest challenges facing the right...

‘More than Housing’ in the Hunziker Areal in Zurich North is one of the largest and most ambitious cooperative housing projects in Europe – and perhaps its most successful. On Wednesday it was named...