Part of LuxTurrim5G work is to look beyond the current city infrastructure and see what the future smart cities could look like and how could smartness be embedded to common city structures like bus stops, benches, or bike racks. Aalto Design Factory (ADF) started their work to understand the future needs of the citizens and converting those needs to concrete designs, concepts and products which were showcased on a public Smart Urban Furniture Virtual Exhibition event on Dec 16th.
Design Factory team waiting for a bus.
Four comprehensive collections of Smart Urban Furniture including smart pole and other elements that not only fit into various cities’ requirements but also provide different infrastructure elements designed to equip the smart cities of the future. Based on a human-centric approach, the team developed a product-service ecosystem, where technology is used to enhance citizen wellbeing. The virtual event presented the final outcomes of the Smart Urban Furniture work done in close collaboration with several LuxTurrim5G partners. These included real-scale physical prototypes of the smart pole, bus stop and bench and a virtual reality application through which the participants could take a tour in the LuxTurrim5G smart city, and not only one city, but four city environments of different style.
“Embedding technology in city infrastructure in a way that it is unobtrusive but functional and responds to the needs of users is an important and not an easy task. The great work of the ADF team on scenarios, concepting and practical prototyping has given important background for the development of the smart pole family and related services and a lot of food for thoughts in smart city planning”, says LuxTurrim5G ecosystem coordinator Markku Heino from Spinverse.
Sara Figueiredo presenting the smart trash cans and Petteri Heinonen operating the smart bench.
Aalto Design Factory is an interdisciplinary product design and learning hub, bringing together students, teachers, researchers, and industry. The ADF LuxTurrim5G team employs four designers from various backgrounds that have been developing the Smart Urban Furniture concept since February 2020. First, the composition of smart cities was analyzed comprehensively. It became evident that the inclusion of 5G technology will not only change the way city services operate, but also that the infrastructure of cities needs to be upgraded. Therefore, the ADF team developed four collections of Smart Urban Furniture. These overall 57 products are designed to fit to the requirements and heritage of various cities.
“One of the key insights is that the implementation of technology alone doesn’t make a city smart. Smart cities are not technology-centric, on the contrary, they are citizen-centric”, emphasizes Kalevi Ekman.
Aalto Design Factory team at their smart bus stop. From left: Prof. Kalevi Ekman, Sushant Passi, Manuel Rosales, Sara Figueiredo, Petteri Heinonen.