Smart cities create more jobs, are cleaner, more flexible, more efficient and safer. They contribute to a sustainable world in social and economic terms too. The exhibition Smart Cities – Parallel Cases 2 shows 23 projects designed to make the city smarter.
The 23 projects in Smart Cities – Parallel Cases 2 come from students from all over the world and show their vision of the making of the city. The emphasis is on design and research projects to which other disciplines besides architecture and urban design also make a contribution. The exhibition not only shows the work of the latest generation of designers, but is itself a design of theirs. Students of spatial and graphic design at the Willem de Koning Academy (WdKA) in Rotterdam place the contemporary designs in an appropriate décor.
The projects in the exhibition show the interest of young designers in the existing cities and landscapes. The project Tar Creek Supergrid, for example, from the University of Toronto, is focused on recycling. An enormous area that has been ruined by the extraction of oil is given a new function as a centre for sustainable energy. A superstructure with a roof of solar panels stands on tall columns so that the landscape beneath it can be given the opportunity to recover. Dwellings and roads are built on the structure, which is constructed from remnants of local rock. Besides making a clever use of new technologies, this project also shows that the latest generation is looking for solutions to social dilemmas.
