N e a r l y Z e r o E n e r g y B u i l d i n g s , S m a r t G r I d s a n d S m a r t C i t i e s
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capital” of the city. ICT are helpful in enhancing the urban performances, based on the
whole capital a city has.
A new idea of community, helped by the use of appropriate communication technologies,
emerges from this scenario, as well as new cities qualities: the better the ability of the
city (with its people, buildings and networks) to connect, the better the city performance.
As a first preliminary remark of this investigation, it is possible to say that from the design
point of view one main difficulty in approaching the smart city design is the “abstract”
nature of the smart city concept itself.
In fact, if renewable generating systems can be designed so to be visible and
understood by the people as a part of the city form, technologies enabling the
connectivity are “invisible”.
How to give a form to this new feature of the city?
The single technologies used in the smart city do not belong to the traditional
architectural repertoire, but they should be designed so to be urban elements of the city
those participate in the whole city form.
For example: with regard to the people involvement in the city development (City Life),
communication plays a very relevant role. In the past, historical cities were based on a
system of understandable elements, codified according to certain aesthetics, shared by
the community. For instance squares and churches were meeting places for people,
whereas towers and bells were tools for communicating at a distance.
Now, how to transform the “webness” (the ability to keep everything connected) into
something that has an aesthetical appeal for citizens?
ENEA, which is participating in the IEA Task-40 Annex 52, as well as in EERA JPs
Smart Grids and Smart Cities, is now carrying out experimentation on this topic. At the
moment, in the framework of a national funding programme (City 2.0) the design of what
we call a “Smart Node”, in the structure of a more complex “Smart Town” (smart building,
smart mobility, smart lighting, smart environment, social participation) is under
investigation.
Our understanding of a Smart Node is that this is an iconic and technological object,
having a dimension comparable both with the city elements and with people, able to
represent for people the idea of webness. In particular, by integrating devices such as
touch screens, beams, and other interactive technologies, it will represent for people a
node where information can be shared and exchanged between citizens and public
administration. The results of this experimentation will be available by the end of the year.
The ambition of the project is placing the first prototype of the smart node in L’Aquila,
trying to help city and citizens to set up again a common city sense among the
inhabitants. In fact, after the historical city centre of L’Aquila was destroyed by an
earthquake in 2009, due to the dangerous situation of the historical buildings, the centre
is not accessible for the citizens; some new housing areas have been planned organised
outside the city ring, but the risk to loose the identity of the city is very high. The Smart
Node is aimed to recollect the people’s memories, and to build up a common city sense
for the future.
Summary and preliminary conclusions
Nearly-Net ZEBs and Smart Grids will be part of our future (Smart) Cities. Despite the
use of the single technologies that will be used in such a city are very well known from a
mono-disciplinary perspective, the way they perform as a whole is still to investigate. To
do this, European Research and Development join programmes are ongoing. The
collaboration between partners with different backgrounds and disciplinary knowledge is
needed.
The “webness”, the ability of the city to connect and to keep citizens connected will be
one of the main features of our cities of tomorrow. The necessity of enabling
