The annual Blue City Symposium takes place on November 15th at EPFL. This event will serve as a platform for bringing together stakeholders from various subprojects across the consortium. It marks the culmination of the project's first year preparatory phase, offering an opportunity to review trajectories, assess progress in subprojects, and delve into discussions on potential emerging synergies among subgroups.

Construction work has begun on Blue City Room, a cutting-edge infrastructure dedicated to the exploration of urban visualization and simulation within the living lab of Lausanne. Conceived through a collaboration between the Media x Design Laboratory (LDM) and the Atelier de la Conception de l’Espace (ALICE), this space will be completed by the end of 2023. It will integrate spatial design concepts with state-of-the-art technological infrastructure, setting the stage for urban discourse supported by data analytics and simulation in the Blue City Project.

The Blue City Project welcomes Dr. Francisco Felix Martin del Campo PhD from Mexico City to its team, a senior researcher at HERUS laboratory at EPFL under Prof. Claudia Binder. With a primary focus on deciphering the intricate dynamics between society and the environment to propel global sustainable development, Francisco brings a wealth of expertise to the project. His research spans various facets including the built environment, circular economy, material flows, the water-energy-food nexus, climate change resilience, and more.

The Blue City Project is intersecting with the Urban Twin Project, a project aimed at developing and validating holistic tools to support decision-makers in achieving environmental goals in Switzerland, such as the Energy Strategy 2050 and the vision of climate-adaptive “sponge cities”. Urban Twin Project brings together research developed by partners from 5 different institutions of the ETH domain, including EPFL, ETHZ, WSL, EMPA, and EAWAG. The Urban Twin Project, with its specific focus on infrastructural flows, data, and simulation, aligns seamlessly with the objectives of the Blue City. The partnership will foster synergies in the realms of energy, water and data analytics, as the two projects look to exchange knowledge and insights to further enhance the innovative landscape of the city.

Ga-In Sim has joined the Blue City research team. She is a doctoral assistant at Media x Design Laboratory at EPFL, supervised by Prof. Jeffrey Huang, bringing expertise in architecture and urban design to the Blue City team. Her work focuses on modeling and visualizing waste flow patterns in an urban context, and circular principles applied to architectural design, drawing from a rich experience in both academia and industry in Switzerland and South Korea.

All partners engaged in the Blue City Project have officially signed the Intellectual Property (IP) agreement, marking a noteworthy step forward in collaboration. This milestone underscores the partners’ collective dedication to the open-source development principles championed by Blue City, as well as their commitment to safeguarding data protection and privacy.

At a recent exhibition hosted by EPFL Architecture, The Blue City Project showcased preliminary visualization experiments of Lausanne as its living laboratory. This presentation was part of an exploration into ongoing research efforts, offering a sneak peek into theoretical frameworks being developed within the Blue City project. The interactive touch display served as a window into the project’s progress, sparking discussion about how to understand urban data for design.

The Blue City Project has launched a design collaboration with ALICE Lab. This dynamic partnership, aimed at creating the innovative "Blue City Room,” seeks to conceive a collaborative space which will serve as an interactive interface and experimental hub for all project stakeholders, fostering a platform for visualizing and discussing the various dimensions of the Blue City Project.

A first workshop was organized at EPFL involving the implementation partners of the Blue City Project. This session was dedicated to refining research questions and objectives specific to each subproject within the Blue City Project. In subgroups, this collaborative effort began the process of defining roadmaps for research endeavors, with an emphasis on shared goals.

Dr. Marco Miotti, PhD has joined the Blue City research team. He is a senior researcher at the IfU at ETHZ under Prof. Stefanie Hellweg, bringing expertise in mobility dynamics and urban form to the Blue City team. His work focuses on modeling the complex relationships between urban layout and multi-scale mobility patterns, considering the potential impact of emerging technologies.

Dr. Paul Keel has joined the Blue City research team from MIT CSAIL. Dr. Paul Keel's work focuses on AI assisted collaboration environments for combining, compacting and structuring team-shared content. He will contribute to Subproject 08 - Artificial Intelligence and support the overall coordination of the flagship project.

The first Blue City implementation workshop brought together our partners for a collaborative brainstorming session, setting the stage for the development of innovative ideas and cooperation in subprojects. This gathering marked a significant step towards fostering collaboration and synergies within our initiative. During this interactive session, partners shared insights and discussed potential pathways to enhance our collective efforts. The workshop served as a crucial milestone in the project’s journey, laying the foundation for a robust framework of collaboration and the exchange of creative ideas across the consortium.

Marcela Delgado Velasco has joined the Blue City research team. She is an architect and doctoral assistant at EPFL in the Media and Design Laboratory. Her research focuses on the multispecies city, and the role of new technologies in envisioning urban data as indicators to augment architectural design and urban planning strategies for biodiversity.

Jonas Schnidrig has joined the Blue City research team. He is a PhD student at EDEY EPFL / HES-SO Valais Wallis / CIRAIG PolyMTL, supervised by Prof. Manuele Margni. He holds a MSc. Mechanical Engineering EPFL interested in Energy and Mobility. His current research involves several projects within Energy planning, Multi-objective Optimization, Circular Economy and Sustainability Assessment, in collaboration with the EPFL Urban Twin project.

Dr. Mathias Bernhard, PhD has joined the Blue City research team. Mathias Bernhard is an architect and computational design specialist. His main research focus is on the creation of design instruments that explore the full geometric potential of additive manufacturing. He is now a Post Doctoral Researcher at EPFL at the Media and Design Laboratory.

Dr. Fabian Torres, PhD has joined the Blue City research team. Fabian is a Postdoctoral Researcher at EPFL in the TRANSP-OR laboratory. He applies his expertise in Applied Mathematics and Operations Research to address challenging problems in Transportation and Logistics. He has over six years of experience in conducting and publishing high-quality research on Vehicle Routing Problems (VRPs) and uncertainty in crowd-based last-mile logistics.

The Blue City Project was officially approved in October 2022. The project secured funding through the first Innosuisse Flagship Funding Scheme of the Swiss Federal Government. This achievement highlights the dedication and innovation of the initial proposal team that included Prof. Jeffrey Huang, Alex Sadeghi, Charlotte Weil and Frederic Dreyer, with the input of project partners from academia and industry and government, including Ville de Lausanne, Swisspost, Romande Energie, Afry, Helvetia Environnement, Transport Lausanne, BG Engineers, ELCA, Sparrow, Agropole and Droople. Congratulations to all involved in this significant endeavor!