Pink Floyd (Prog rock 1965 – 2025, part 2)

The songs of the English group Pink Floyd reflect many stylistic building blocks of prog rock mentioned in the first episode of this series. This is why this group is often called the first “prog rock” band. Listening to Pink Floyd is therefore a good way to get an impression of this genre.

The band’s founding members Roger Waters, Nick Mason and Richard Wright studied architecture at London Polytechnic and Syd Barrett at Camberwell College of Arts in the early 1960s. Few bands will have had so many different names in this early period: Sigma 6, Meggadeaths, Screaming Abdabs, Leonard’s Lodgers, Spectrum Five and Tea Set. When Barrett discovered that an eponymous group existed in the distant Netherlands, the name Pink Floyd made its appearance. Pink and Floyd are the first names of two American blues musicians.

The band is performing regularly in clubs and gained some fame for being considered one of the first groups with a psychedelic sound. With Syd Barrett as their main inspiration, Pink Floyd also distinguishes themselves at the time with elaborate compositions, sonic experimentation and philosophical lyrics. The group had its first hits in 1967, Arnold Layne and ‘See Emily play‘. The links point to the corresponding music videos. To my taste, the image and sound are strikingly like the videos the Beatles previously made to accompany their songs.

Syd Barrett’s artistic starring role took its toll when he collapsed mentally and physically due to LSD use. At times, he stood motionless on stage for long periods and was unresponsive. Eventually, he agrees to leave. David Gilmour takes his place and his guitar solos would become an unmistakable part of many of the group’s songs. In the following years, Roger Waters increasingly becomes the artistic brain of the band and gradually takes over the leadership. The second album ‘A saucerful of secrets’ (1968) still features one Syd Barrett song: ‘Jugband blues’. The song ‘Set the controls for the heart of the sun’ exudes a mystical atmosphere and is a bridge to the following albums on which increasingly longer songs appear. You can listen to this song here:

I will leave the next album ‘Ummagumma’ unmentioned. In retrospect, the band members thought this was a failed experiment. And then, in 1970 the group is releasing ‘Atom heart mother’, which would become the band’s first number-one album in the UK. The album’s title track is a six-part suite, covering one side of the LP. The orchestral arrangements include a brass and string section and a 16-piece choir. You can watch and listen to a live performance in full ensemble here. Such large-scale performances were very expensive and later the group shortened the suite to 15 minutes without additional musicians.

Precisely because of the orchestral nature of the original version, symphony orchestras that do not shy away from experimentation have also included the entire suite in their repertoire in edited form. You can watch a performance by the Conservatorio di Cagliari here.

The next album to hit number one in many European countries is ‘The dark side of the moon’. In the US, it spent 14 years (!) on the Billboard Top 100. Global sales reached 50 million copies. The album explores themes of conflict, greed, life, death and mental illness. Memories of Syd Barrett resound in many places. You can watch and listen to a live performance of the album, filmed at Earls Court 1994, here.

Together, both sides of the LP form a continuous piece of music. The five songs on each side reflect different stages in human life, starting and ending with a heartbeat. Below you can listen to six songs that became top-one singles. “Speak to Me” and “Breathe” emphasize the importance of making your own choices in life. The first side of the album ends with Wright’s and Clare Torry’s metaphor for death.

“Money“, the first track on side two, opens with the sound of cash registers and rhythmically ringing coins. The song mocks greed and consumerism. “Money” would become the band’s most commercially successful song. “Us and them”addresses the risks of using black-and-white contrasts to characterise individuals and relationships. The album ends with “Eclipse“, which embraces the concepts of otherness and unity and encourages the listener to recognise common traits in fellow human beings.

Four female vocalists sing on “Brain damage”, “Eclipse” and “Time”, and saxophonist Dick Parry plays on “Us and them” and “Money”. Besides conventional rock band instruments, synthesizers play a prominent role on this album.

The next album ‘Wish you were here’ would also get a number-one listing in many countries, including the US and Great Britain. This album is steeped in melancholic memories of Syd Barrett, co-founder of the band. Dedicated to him is ‘Shine on you crazy diamond’, a nine-part suite. Critics consider this album one of the best prog rock albums of all time. While Pink Floyd was working on the album, Barrett made an unexpected visit to the studio. He had grown fat and bald and was not recognised at first. He hung around a bit without saying much.

In the mid-1970s, Waters is becoming an increasingly emphatic leader of the band and he is determining the themes for new albums, for which he also writes the lion’s share of the lyrics. For the next album, he writes a script with Bob Ezrin around Pink, a character inspired by Waters’ childhood experiences, the most poignant of which is his father’s death in World War II. Pink would become addicted to drugs and depressed by the music industry, eventually turning into a megalomaniac, a development partly inspired by Syd Barrett’s downfall. By the end of the album, the increasingly fascistic audience would watch Pink break down the wall and become a normal and caring person again. You can watch a 1994 performance of ‘Another brick in the wall’ here.

This song sung by a giant choir and orchestra is also fun to watch.

Meanwhile, tensions are rising within the band: Waters fires Wright, because of his lack of input in the production of ‘The Wall’, and he sleeps in a different hotel from the other band members after gigs. Gilmour has felt undervalued for years. Indeed, he is not the most creative songwriter, but his guitar playing is leading Pink Floyd. It was under these circumstances that the production of ‘The Final Cut’, the 12^de studio album came about (1984). The Final Cut is an anti-war concept album that addresses what Waters considers the betrayal of fallen British servicemen, like his father. They sacrificed their lives during World War II for an unrealized post-war dream. You can watch the subdued song ‘Two sons in the Sunset’ here. It is about the impending atomic holocaust. Critics’ reactions vary. Rolling Stone considers it “art rock’s crowning masterpiece”, the magazine sees it mostly as a solo album by Roger Waters.

‘The final cut’ is the last album Gilmour, Mason and Waters made together. It would take until 1987 to resolve all legal issues, the most important of which was whether Gilmour and Mason can continue with Pink Floyd. They eventually agreed on this, and Wright also came back on board. The trio’s first joint album was ‘A momentary lapse of reason’ (1988). Qualitatively, it did not come close to the albums from the 70s. The ironically titled ‘Signs of Life’ is an instrumental prelude to ‘Learning to Fly‘ in which Gilmour’s guitar comes into its own, and the uplifting ‘On the Turning Away’ is just beautiful. You can listen to and watch this song here.

After this, two more albums, will follow ‘The division bell’ (1994) and Endless river (2014) The group has promoted ‘The division bell’ extensively in the US and Europe, as well as ‘A momentary lapse of reason’. From ‘The division bell’, you can watch and listen to ‘High hopes’ here and from ‘Endless river’ to ‘Louder than words’ here.

Wright died of cancer on 15 September 2008, aged 65. His former bandmates all paid tribute to his life and work; Gilmour said on the occasion that his “soulful voice and playing were vital, magical components of our most recognised Pink Floyd sound”. A week after Wright’s death, Gilmour released “Remember a Day” from A Saucerful of Secrets, written and originally sung by Wright, as a tribute on BBC Two’s programme ‘Later… with Jools Holland’. You can watch and listen to this performance here.

After the disbanding of Pink Floyd in 2008, Nick Mason and David Gilmour go their separate ways. By then, Waters already had been performing under his own name for years, singing old and new songs.

In 2018, Mason formed a new band, ‘Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets’, to perform Pink Floyd’s early material. Both the new band and the audience seem to have lots of fun. You can watch ‘Fearless’ here.

It’s quite a seat, but very much worth it. 52 years after Pink Floyd’s filmed a performance in Pompeii, Nick Mason gives a 2.5-hour concert at this venue with his new band. You can hear almost all the famous Pink Floyd songs in the process. Watch the full recording here.

David Gilmour has gone in a different direction, producing his own studio albums. The fifth album, ‘Luck and strange’, was released in June 2024. Gilmour’s wife, novelist Polly Samson, wrote most of the lyrics, which often deal with mortality and ageing. Their children contribute additional vocals, lyrics and instrumentation. This music video for the song ‘Luck and Strange’ includes fragments from 2007 of Richard Wright’s performing, a year before his death.

The ‘Luck and strange tour’ from September 2024, has visited Circo Massimo in Rome, the Royal Albert Hall in London, the Intuit Dome and the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles and Madison Square Garden in New York City. YouTube is teeming with worthless videos of visitors. Instead, you can see here some footage of a rehearsal for these gigs, with a prominent contribution from Romany Gilmour.

By 2013, Pink Floyd had sold more than 250 million records worldwide, making the group one of the best-selling music artists of all time at that time. ‘Dark side of the moon’, ‘The wall’ and ‘Wish you were here’ are among the best-selling albums of all time. Four Pink Floyd albums topped the US Billboard 200 and five the UK Albums Chart. In the Sunday Times Rich List, Music Millionaires 2013 (UK), Waters is at number 12 with an estimated fortune of £150 million, Gilmour at number 27 with £85 million and Mason at number 37 with £50 million.

So, what makes Pink Floyd a prog rock group? In the first instalment of this series, I listed the characteristics of prog rock. Keeping these in mind, what stands out most are the complex orchestral productions, the musical contrasts, their blending with non-conventional sound effects, the thematic nature of the albums, the depth of the lyrics, the psychedelic – others say ‘spatial’ – nature of many melodies, the long, partly improvised solos, the intertwining of music and design of the albums and the spectacular lighting effects during the concerts. In the next episode, I will start from the characteristics attributed to prog rock and try to recognise them in songs by various prog rock groups.

October 17, 2021

Startups: Between the Curse of Becoming a Taker and the Prospect of Being a Maker

Next months, these posts focus on the challenges of Earthlings of to bring humane cities closer. These posts represent the main findings of my e-book Humane cities. Always humane. Smart if helpful, updates and supplements included. The English version of this book can be downloaded for free here and the Dutch version here.

For centuries, entrepreneurship was linked to art and craft and rewarded by personal fulfilment, satisfied customers, and a good life. The term entrepreneur is still associated with giving direction, shape and content to new activities based on personal motivation and skills and thereby creating socially approved value. A description that applies to the self-employed, business entrepreneurs, franchisees or intrapreneurs and includes both commercial, institutional, and artistic activities. However, there are two problems. Overcoming them opens the way to become a better business.

The plunder of the earth

Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz has warned that the creative power of entrepreneurship can easily become destructive. A ‘maker’ becomes a ‘taker’ once creating value becomes making money in the first place. Indeed, for centuries, companies have robbed resources around the world, destroyed nature, traded millions of slaves and exploited domestic workers, creating the divide between rich and poor countries.

The creative power of entrepreneurship can also be aimed at sustainable prosperity, for their employees, the country, and the world. In that case, the “purpose” of a company precedes the pursuit of profit. Unfortunately, still a minority of all companies are moving in this direction while others pretending.

The decline of engagement and passion within the workforce

There is more. In developed countries, the blatant exploitation of labour has disappeared. Instead, the majority of employment relegates into low strain jobs. Research by Gallup and Deloite has shown over consecutive years that over 64% of all employees worldwide are not engaged or passionate. Find John Hagel explain this in a short video. The reason is clear. 20^th century companies have organized their production according to principles of scalable efficiency and have top-down planning and control. Room for initiative is therefore neither expected nor desired. Moreover, detailed protocols and regulations limit employment for people at a distance from the labour market.

In a rapidly changing world, companies must be adaptive and innovative. They therefore need flexible, interdisciplinary teams with a high degree of self-government and less pay differentials. According to recent research in 17 countries, this type of organizations (8%) outperforms in all respects.

Summarizing, to become a better business requires a double challenge:

Replace the dominance of the pursuit of money with a social and environmental purpose.
Mobilizing the entrepreneurial and other capacities of their whole work force by forms of self-organization and shared leadership.

Why focussing on startups?

As only a limited number of companies meet these conditions, employees consider starting their own business. In the US alone, approximately two million workers give up well-paying jobs every year and become self-employed. 127,000 starters were registered in the Netherlands in 2018. Of them, only a minority will become a startup, which means that they will successfully commercialize a promising technological innovation and grow rapidly on an international level.

Start-ups are potential engines of growth and innovation. In the US, their steady growth is compensating for job losses in the rest of the economy. Dutch startups created 20.000 of jobs in 2018 and 2019. A recent reportoffers excellent documentation of the identity, growth and potential of the 4,311 Dutch startups in 2019, most of which have fewer than 10 employees. 34% of Dutch startups can found in the Amsterdam metropolitan area.

The hope is that start-ups will rise to both challenges by nurturing their social and environmental purpose end fueling the commitment and passion of each employee, and thereby become a better business.

Yet, like any other businesses, startups risk becoming takers rather than makers, trading their social and environmental purpose for the pursuit of money and losing the engagement and passion of their employees. Fortunately, they can prevent this.

Eleven ways to stay a better business

Embrace self-organization and shared leadership.
Involve all employees in the continuous strengthening of the social and environmental purpose of the company.
Enable all employees to become shareholders or even better co-owners.
Cherish diversity within the employees.
Secure shares in a foundation while enabling shareholders to support the purpose of the company.
Cap the profit to a level that guarantees the continuity of the company.
Ban greed, cancel bonuses, or at most pay a limited and equal allowance to all employees.
Place surplus profits in a foundation that spends money in accordance with the purpose of the company.
Being a fair taxpayer who refrains from tax avoidance practices.
Create a supervisory board to monitor the purpose of the company.
Focus the founder/director/CEO role on monitoring the purpose of the company and the commitment of all employees and on fueling the discussion on how to deal with changing external conditions.

Rapid societal changes require a reinventing the concept of entrepreneurship. Because of their flexibility and commitment, startups are apt to embrace the dual ambition of pursuing a social and environmental purpose and of mobilizing all employee’s engagement and passion.

August 28, 2021

Tools for circular construction

Next months, these posts deal with the challenges of Earthlings of bringing humane cities closer. These posts represent the most important findings of my e-book Humane cities. Always humane. Smart if helpful, updates and supplements included. The English version of this book can be downloaded for free here and the Dutch version here.

Structural waste in the build environment. Source: The circular economy: Moving from theory to practice, McKinsey & Company 2015

The impact of circular principles in the construction sector is huge, because buildings are responsible for more than 50% of the total use of materials on earth, including valuable types such as steel, copper, aluminium and zinc. Moreover, they produce about 40% of all greenhouse gases.

By circular construction we mean designing, building and demolishing a building in such a way that, in addition to the high-quality reuse of materials, justice is done to sustainability ambitions in the field of energy, water, and biodiversity and ecosystems.

In case of demolishment, nowadays many components are reused, but at a very low level, for instance concrete and stones as the foundation of new roads. Apart from the question how many new roads are still needed, this type of recycling destroys the intrinsic quality of materials and does not diminish the recovery of new materials. At least, separation of glass, steel, wood and other materials can be made mandatory. In addition, valuable materials can by ‘saved’ by operating in a targeted manner, even though these buildings are anything but circular. This is called ‘urban mining’. The biggest problem is that recycled materials are often more expensive than new ones.

Anyway, a first step is more efficient use of existing buildings. Evidently, progress can be made by planning, designing, developing and building circular buildings. A number of options are mentioned below^[1].

Urban planning

Challenges for planning are the use of inner-city vacant land and issuing mandatory requirements regarding the construction of new buildings, for instance the use of less cement, glass and steel, the mandatory application of a certain percentage of reused materials, and becoming energy positive or at least energy-neutral. Switching to sustainable timber is an option for 90% of homes and 70% of offices being built.

Mandatory reuse of existing components

Reuse of existing materials means than glass is reused as glass and concrete pillars as pillars. The same applies to doors, frames, carpets, wall-cladding materials and so on.

The materials passport, which contains an overview of all materials and components that are used to construct of a house or building, is a useful tool as well. The obligation to reuse a large percentage of existing components has far-reaching consequences for the design and construction of new houses. To start with, after demolishment all materials must be selected, cleaned, registered and stored in new-to-develop warehouses.

The Circl pavilion of the ABN-AMRO bank

The Circl pavilion of the Dutch ABN-AMRO bank is an example of a new building that uses as many existing components as possible. For instance, 1200 m² of wooded floors, partition walls of a demolished building and 16.000 garments of employees for isolation purposes. All components of the building are designed to be reused^[2].

Industrial production and 3D printing

Construction of components in factories, deploying industrial processes, will reduce costs by 30 percent and the delivery time by at least 50 percent.

Decreasing size of apartments

The size of apartments will decrease, partly due to costs, but also because of the presence of shared guest rooms, lounge areas and terraces for working and socializing, spaces for washing and drying laundry.

The need for office space will decrease rapidly due to sharing space and working in an external environment. So IBM has only one desk available for 12 employees. Given the presence of 300,000 employees, this has led to savings on real estate of around € 1 billion in the past 10 years.

Modularity and durability

A key barrier for better use of floor space is the lack of flexibility in the design of buildings and room configurations. A modular design, which provides for easy replacement of partitions and placement of complete functional units (kitchens and bathrooms) facilitates adjustments as the use of a building changes.

Forget new construction at all

As families become smaller and offices need less space, existing space becomes more underused. Well-thought adjustments to the lay-out of existing houses and buildings can improve their efficiency without reducing their amenity. That is what adaptive reuse stands for: instilling a new purpose on an existing “leftover building.”. A number of inspiring examples can be seen here^[5].

^[1] https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/sustainability/our-insights/the-circular-economy-moving-from-theory-to-practice

^[2] https://www.duurzaambedrijfsleven.nl/infra/24589/abn-amro-opent-deuren-van-innovatief-en-circulair-paviljoen-circl

^[3] http://www.winsun3d.com/En/About/

^[4] https://www.dirtt.com/

^[5] https://www.archdaily.com/931659/10-plus-proposals-to-promote-adaptive-reuse-and-introduce-transformative-ideas?utm_medium=email&utm_source=ArchDaily%20List&kth=

December 1, 2020

The disappearance of engagement and passion

For centuries, entrepreneurship has been motivated by craftsmen’s passion. In less than one century this kind of entrepreneurship disappeared. The fascination of making new things still can be found incidentally in small and medium-sized businesses operating. In large companies a new generation of managers has taken possession of the boardroom, who are motivated by financial incentives in the first place. This applies to most employees too. Let’s face the facts.

Engagement

Each year, Gallup collects data worldwide about the engagement of the workforce in companies and organizations with more than 50 employees. These are characterized as ‘engaged’, ‘actively not engaged’ and ‘passively not engaged’. The table below provides an overview, showing that in any country only a minority of this group is ‘actively engaged’. This means that they are enthusiastic about their work, their colleagues, praise their company, and do not worry if they have to work overtime.

Percentages of actively engaged (green), passively not engaged (gray) and actively not engaged (black) of employees in different parts of the world.

Lack of engagement correlates strongly with the ‘low strain’ character of many jobs, but also with the management style of most bosses.

Companies want to increase the engagement of their employees as the level of engagement correlates with productivity. Therefore, worldwide they spend billions on this goal and to train managers to support it. Without much result.

Engagement is not enough

According to John Hagel, managers are heading in the wrong direction by focusing on engagement alone. After studying individuals who are exceptionally productive in a wide range of professions, he concluded that what they have in common is ‘the passion of an explorer’.

Passion does not mean that these people are overly gifted, diligent, hardworking or smart. Instead, they are determined to achieve their goal in a certain domain, are excited when faced with challenges, and seek collaboration with others who can support them. Passion is the main driver of entrepreneurship.

Unfortunately, the number of employees with passion is even lower than the number of engaged ones. The latest US survey of passionate employees shows that up to 13% of the workforce (managers included) have each of the three aforementioned attributes. An additional 39% have one or two attributes. 64% of all employees and managers are neither engaged nor passionate, or in other words they lack the essence of entrepreneurial behaviour.

This lack of engagement and passion entrepreneurship or intrapreneurship is understandable. The 20^th century companies have organized their production according to principles of scalable efficiency and a system of planning and control, top-down assessment based on performance indicators and quarterly reporting to the next boss in hierarchy. Consequently, room for initiative is limited, neither expected nor desired. At the same time making money became the ultimate objective of most companies and the top management made large efforts to satisfy the shareholders and their own monetary ambitions.

Self-organization and interpreneurship

There are strong arguments for self-organization and -management by employees, just think of the book Reinventing Organizations by Frederic Laloux. However, little research has been done into the relationship between self-management, entrepreneurial behaviour and performance. The recently published HOW-report has changed this. Research in 17 countries (among others the Netherlands, Germany, the USA, India, Russia, China and Japan) showed that organizations based on self-government performed better in all respects.

The superiority of self-governed organizations. The gray bar refers at organizations in which employee’s influence depend on their rank and authority. The black organisations are the dominant type, based on hierarchical assignment of tasks, planning and control and the red ones are based on self-government.

The superiority of the scores of self-governed organizations is clear. The HOW-report has delved into the distinguishing characteristics of employees of these companies. These are: more trust, willingness to take risk, celebration of success as collective achievement, collaboration and mutual assistance, sharing information, and respect for personal judgement.

In order to survive, companies should digest these data, but managers will not be happy with them. They undermine their position and huge financial benefits. Time will learn whether the many new start-ups are wiser, or whether they become ‘takers’ instead of ‘makers’ as well, to use Joseph Stiglitz words.

April 3, 2019

The holy grail: Full transparent window and solar panel at the same time

Buildings account for 40% of the global energy use. As a consequence, the mass realisation of net zero-energy buildings (NZEBs) is top priority for urban developers. therefore the integration of photovoltaics (BIPV) in the billions of windows is a top challenge that seems to be realized.

Promising steps

At first sight, harvesting energy from sunlight and maintaining full-transparency seem incompatible. Photovoltaics use ambient light at the same frequencies the human eye can see, and efforts to increase the efficiency of sun panels are at odds with maintaining transparency.

The past 10 years researchers at MIT, UCLA, Michigan State University and several other institutions – Delft Technical University among them – have made progress in bridging both objectives^[1].

Until to date Luminescent Solar Concentratorsare the most promising technology to combine harvesting electricity and transparency^[2].

Luminescent solar concentrators catch both diffused and direct solar radiation. The light penetrates a so-called waveguide, a polymeric or glassy optical plate or thin film coated with luminescent materials. Within the waveguide the light is moving sideways. It is absorbed and turned into electricity by narrow strips of photovoltaic cells, which are either sporadically embedded in the plate or placed at the plate’s ends.

The efficiency of the process depends largely from the chromophores, the particles in the luminescent coating that have to catch as much light as possible. At the same time, these particles need to change the wavelength of the light in order to prevent other particles absorbing the light again on its way to the photovoltaic cells in the periphery of the window. For the time being, the effectiveness of this process is at the expense of the transparency of the window. With other words, the more electricity is harvested, the less transparent the window is. Nevertheless, the results so far already are commercialized successfully^[3]. A few examples:

Onyx Solar

Onyx solar is a global company (Spanish by origin) that is developing and producing energy harvesting glass panes for construction and retrofitting purposes^[4]. Onyx Solar offers fully glass panels in stunning designs and in in specific colors, shapes and transparency (title picture). The company is able to trade off different degrees of transparency and color with different degrees of harvesting electricity. For instance, its most transparent panels (XL Vision) combine a transparency of 30% with a peak power of 28 watt (m²)^[5]. This is about 25% of the output of ‘regular’ thin film solar panels^[6].

Physee

Physee is a startup from Delft Technical University in the Netherlands^[7]. During the 2017 World Economic Forum, the company was called ‘technology pioneer’. Its flagship product is the Power Window, which surpasses the transparency of Onyx’s windows, but – not by surprise – has a lower electricity generating capacity: 8 – 10 watt (m²)^[8]. The company deploys thulium, a rare earth metal on the waveguide, together with a CIGS PV-cell strip attached to one glass-edge^[9]. Currently, a few companies are deploying Power Windowsto support the development of this ambitious B-company.

Is a break-through underway?

A couple of years ago, a team directed by Richard Lunt of Michigan State University, took a different approach^[10]. The principle behind it resembles that of the LSC discussed above. The concentrator also is a thin layer of material that can be placed on windows, phone screens or any flat, clear surface. Its thickness is less than 1/1,000th of a millimeter, and it is virtually indistinguishable from glass. This layer captures the photons of ultraviolet and infrared light while allowing the photons of visible light to pass through. For this reason, the result is exceptionally transparent to the human eye.

This technology is called ClearView power. The short video below is disclosing some technical details of this technology.

Ubiquitous Energy

In an effort to commercialize transparent solar technology Lunt founded the company Ubiquitous Energy^[11], which is currently in the rolling out its first windows/panels for commercial use. I couldn’t find information about the window’s electricity generating power at this time, except that the company announced that 50 watt (m²) is feasible.

Meanwhile…..

architects and urbanists might follow the example of theInternational School in Copenhagen^[12]that covered 6000 m²of its walls with green solar panels to produce more then 50% of its electricity and also to contribute significantly to the building’s aesthetic.

^[1]http://www.glasstopower.com/g2p/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Luminescent_solar_concentrators_Brovelli.pdf

^[2]J.W.E. Wiegman, E. van der Kolk, Building integrated thin film luminescent solar concentrators: detailed efficiency characterization and light transport modelling, Solar Energy Materials & Solar Cells 103 (2012) 41-47.

^[3]https://www.business.com/articles/transparent-solar-windows-construction/

^[4]https://www.onyxsolar.com/projects

^[5]https://www.onyxsolar.com/product-services/technical-specifications

^[6]The bottom of this sector of the Onyx Solar website compares in a visual way the levels of transparancy: https://www.onyxsolar.com/product-services/amorphous-pv-glass

^[7]http://www.physee.eu/products#powerwindow

^[8]http://www.wattisduurzaam.nl/5871/energie-opwekken/zonne-energie/30-vierkante-meter-delftse-zonneramen-rabobank-eindhoven/

^[9]The applicability of thulium has been studied by Lisset Manzano Chávez, in her master theses Optimization of a Luminescent Solar Concentrator: Simulation and application in PowerWindow designat the Delft University of Technology.

^[10]The principles behind this process are disclosed in a paper titled ‘Emergence of highly transparent photovoltaics for distributed applications’, published in Nature Research (2017)

^[11]http://ubiquitous.energy

^[12]https://inhabitat.com/this-danish-school-is-completely-covered-with-over-12000-sea-green-solar-panels/

March 19, 2019March 19, 2019

Amsterdam: Heading for a circular economy

Demolition waste – Photo Jim Henderson Licensed under Creative Commons

Possibly, in 2050 the word wastecan be removed from our dictionaries. At that time, the Dutch economy will be circular according to the government. Meaning in essence, that all raw materials are reused infinitely. In order to reach this goal, an agreement with respect to the use of raw materials has been concluded between 325 parties. Its first milestone is halving the use of primary raw materials before 2030^[1].

Many are skeptical of the outcomes of this agreements. Admittedly, 38.7% of the Dutch population feels that we are on the right track, although progress is slow. Jan Jonker^[2], professor of business administration at Radboud University, is more pessimistic: We do not think circular yet. Institutions, from legal to fiscal, are fully geared to the linear economy.

Amsterdam is making progress. In 2015, the municipality explored opportunities for a circular economy, which have been published in Amsterdam Circular: Vision and roadmap for city and region^[3]. Dozens of projects have been started, albeit mostly on a small scale and starting from a learning-by-doing perspective.

The report Amsterdam circular; evaluation and action perspectives^[4](2017) is an account of the evaluation of these projects. It concludes that a circular economy is realistic. The city has also won the World Smart City Award for Circular Economy for its approach – facilitating small-scaled initiatives directed at metropolitan goals. Nevertheless, a substantial upscaling must take place in the shortest possible time.

Below, I focus on the construction sector, which includes all activities related to demolition, renovation, transformation and building. Its impact is large; buildings account for more than 50% of the total use of materials on earth, including valuable ones such as steel, copper, aluminum and zinc. In the Netherlands, 25% of CO2 emissions and 40% of the energy use comes from the built environment.

By circular construction we mean design, construction, and demolition of houses and buildings focused on high-quality use and reuse of materials and sustainability ambitions in the field of energy, water, biodiversity, and ecosystems as well. For example, the Bullitt Centerin Seattle, sometimes called the greenest commercial building in the world, is fully circular^[5]

Photo: James Provost licensed under Creative Commons

The construction sector is not a forerunner in innovation, but of great importance with respect to circularity goals. The Amsterdam metropolitan region is planning to build 250,000 new homes deploying circular principles before 2050.

The evaluation of the projects that have been set up in response to the Amsterdam Circular Planhas yielded a number of insights that are important for upscaling: The most important is making circularity one of the key criteria in granting building permits. The others are the role of urban planning and the contribution of urban mining, which will be dealt with first.

The role of urban planning

Urban planning plays a crucial role in the promotion of circularity. It is mandatory that all new plans depart from circular construction; only then a 100% reuse of components after 2050 is possible. The renovation of existing houses and buildings is even more challenging than the construction of new ones. Therefore, circular targets must also apply here. Dialogue with the residents, and securing their long-term perspective is essential. The transformation of the office of Alliander in Duiven into an energy neutral and circular building is exemplary (photo below).

The contribution of urban mining

Existing buildings include countless valuable materials. The non-circular way of building in the past impedes securing these materials in a useful form during the demolition process. Deploying dedicated procedures enables the salvation of a large percentage of expensive materials. In this case we speak of urban mining. Unfortunately, at this time re-used materials are often more expensive than new ones. Therefore, a circular economy will benefit with a shift from taxes on labor to taxes on raw materials.

Issuing building permits

The municipality of Amsterdam made a leap forwards with respect to issuing building permits to enable circularity^[6]. Based on the above-mentioned definition of circular building, five themes are addressed in the assessment of new building projects: Use of materials, water, energy, ecosystems as well as resilience and adaptivity. Each of these themes can scrutinized from four angles:

The reduction of the use of materials, water and energy
The degree of reuse and the way in which reuse is guaranteed.
The sustainable production and purchase of all necessary materials.
Sensible management, for example a full registration of all components used.

Application of these angles to the five themes yields 32 criteria. A selection of these criteria is made in each project, depending from whether the issuing of building permits or renovation is concerned, and also from where the building takes place. For instance, a greenfield site versus a central location in a monumental environment.

One of the projects

In recent years, the municipality of Amsterdam has included circular criteria in four tenders: Buiksloterham, Centrumeiland, the Zuidas (all residential buildings) and Sloterdijk (retail and trade). On the Zuidas, the first circular building permit was granted in December 2017. 30% of the final judgment were based on circularity criteria.

The winner is AM, in collaboration with Team V Architects. In their project Cross over, they combined more than 250 homes with offices, work space for small businesses and a place for creative start-ups. The project doesn’t have a fixed division between homes and offices. Reuse in future demolition is facilitated by a materials passport and by building with dry connections, enabling easy dismantling.

Need to organize learning

The detailed elaboration of the 32 criteria for circularity to be applied in tenders, covers more than 40 densely printed pages. One cannot expect from potential candidates to meet the requirements routinely. It would therefore be welcomed if the municipality of Amsterdam shared its knowledge with applicants collectively during the submission process.

I also would welcome ‘pre-competitive’ cooperation by communities with manufacturers, knowledge institutions, clients and construction partners with the aim to develop circular building. This involves for instance standardization of the dimensioning of components (windows, frames, floorboards) and the ‘rehabilitation’ of ‘demolished’ components while maintaining the highest possible value. This might be combined with a database in which developers can search for available components.

In Zwolle, another strategy is followed: the municipality, housing corporations and construction companies have formed a Concilium^[7], which aims to significantly expand the already planned construction of houses, using circular principles.

Circularity requires closing circles. Collaboration within the supply-chain is one of these.

^[1]https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/documenten/rapporten/2016/09/14/bijlage-1-nederland-circulair-in-20

^[2]https://www.duurzaambedrijfsleven.nl/circulaire-economie/27945/de-stand-in-het-land-zijn-we-al-een-beetje-circulair

^[3]https://www.amsterdam.nl/wonen-leefomgeving/duurzaam-amsterdam/publicaties-duurzaam/amsterdam-circulair-0/

^[4]https://www.amsterdam.nl/wonen-leefomgeving/duurzaam-amsterdam/publicaties-duurzaam/amsterdam-circulair-1/

^[5]http://www.bullittcenter.org

^[6]https://www.amsterdam.nl/wonen-leefomgeving/duurzaam-amsterdam/publicaties-duurzaam/amsterdam-circulair-1/

^[7]https://www.weblogzwolle.nl/nieuws/61325/ambitieus-plan-voor-zwolse-woningmarkt.html

March 1, 2019March 1, 2019

Digital technology eats politics for breakfast.

This short essay is looking for an answer to the question “Does technology develop autonomously or can society be in control?

This issue takes a central position in two thought-provoking books to be discussed below [1].

The first book is Radical Technologies, written by Adam Greenfield (Verso, 2017). The second one is A New Digital Dealby Bas Boorsma (Rainmaking Publications, 2017). Both authors have been involved in the development of smart cities for many years. Bas Boorsma among others in various global and regional roles in Cisco. Adam Greenfield – also author of Against the Smart City^[2]has been working among others as an information architect for Nokia. Nowadays he is teaching at London School of Economics. Both books go beyond smart cities and focus on the role of digitalization in society.

Setting the stage

Bas Boorsma has a strong belief in the – until now only partially realized – potential of digital technology. Adam Greenfield refuses to discuss any such hypothetical value. He refers at Stafford Beer’s famous phrase The purpose of a system is what it doesand that is the colonization of the daily life by technology giants and near-monopolists like Google, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook, called ‘the Stacks’ and other big technology companies.

Digitalization

The essence of digitalization is restructuring economy and society with digital communication and infrastructures. According to Bas Boorsma, the network paradigm will replace centralist thinking by the development of many connected nodes, in society and in the digital world as well. The organisation of society and the principles behind the Internet will reinforce each other.

Many expected digitalization to facilitate the emergence of a ‘true’ free market, i.e. an economy based on peer-to-peer principles, collaboration, with small enterprises relying of the network effect and digital tools to conduct business in ways previously reserved for large corporations (New Digital Deal, p.52). This is what initially happened indeed: The development of platforms empowered start-ups, small companies and professionals. Many network utopians believed the era of ‘creative commons’ had arrived and with it, a non-centralized and highly digital form of ‘free market egalitarianism’(New Digital Deal, p.52).

Some already predicted the decline of capitalism.

However, the network paradigm and the platform economy have been appropriated to a large extend by ‘the Stacks’ and other big companies. As a consequence, the workings of capitalism, revitalizing monopolism and oligarchy have been amplified. Digitalization-powered capitalism now possesses a speed, agility and rawness that is unprecedented(New Digital Deal, p.54). In this respect Bas Boorsma’s en Adam Greenfield’s visions do not divert much.

A New Digital Deal

According to Bas Boorsma digitalization cannot be countered, but steering is needed and feasible. He applies the analogy of a skillfully steered canoe sailing an incredible fast-flowing river, harvesting its energy. A New Digital deal must steer the further development and impact of digitalization to deliver on its promise in full, and we have to do this in a moral context… (New Digital Deal, p.42). In order to deploy digitalization and to manage platforms for the greater good of the individual and society as a whole, new regulatory approaches will be required… (New Digital Deal, p.46). This has to enable us to manage technological growth, regulate platforms, celebrate recalibrated free market principles, prepare for the emergence of new and better jobs, harvest digitalization generated wealth… and to tax wealth and platform rather than labor(New Digital Deal, p.65).

Thus the New Digital Deal requires strong regulatory power to bridge the tension between at one side the initial expectations and hopes for a post-capitalist society, dominated by many connected small actors and at the other side the appropriation of the digitalization and the platform-economy by ‘the Stacks’ and other companies. The question is what does this regulatory power include.

Bas Boorsma deals in depth with the societal impact of digitalization in domains like healthcare, education, transport, and energy. In each case he explores the content of the New Digital Deal. In the meantime I searched in vain for the answer to the question about the regulation of free markets and growing monopolism of ‘the Stacks’. The answer to this question is particularly important because it is exactly the unrestricted growth of monopolism that feeds Adam Greenfield’s deep pessimism with respect to the societal benefits of digitalisation. Adam Greenfield does not answer this question either, presumably because there is no answer. Still, I think there is one.

The vanity of a digital paradise

Before returning to the New Digital Deal, I go deeper into the reason of Adam Greenfield’s pessimism. In consecutive chapters of his book he unveils how big companies – sometimes in cooperation with the state – have taken possession of digital technologies: Where previously everything that transpired in the fold of the great city evaporated in the moment it happened, all of these rhythms and processes are captured by the network and retained for inspection (Radical Technologies, p.5). This because of the combined effect of smartphones, sensors, security cameras, ‘wearables’ – like Hitatchi’s Business Microscope – and the fast increasing capabilities of the algorithmic production of knowledge.

Was blockchain technology intended as the foundation for newly to develop decentralized peer-to peer distributed organizations, is it actually captured by large companies. They embrace it as a fundamentally improved entrusted framework for identity and data sharing (contracts and databases).

However truly transformative circumstances will arise not from any one technology standing alone, but from multiple technical capabilities woven together in combination (Radical technologies, p.273). Again ‘the Stacks’ will benefit most. Their innovation capacity is larger than any other company and their cash is unlimited. They are turning the entire planetary-scale entrepreneurial community into a vast distributive R&D lab… At any given moment there are thousands of startups busily exploring the edges of technological possibility, and shouldering all the risk of involved in doing so. (Radical Technologies, p.281) By focusing on the development of ‘minimum viable products’ they anticipate to be taken over by one of ‘the Stacks’ or other technology companies and cash the millions these companies offer. The start-up community is more vital than ever before but is nothing like the decentralized occupants of the nodes of the network on the eve of a new liberalized order. In stead they support the dominance of ‘the Stacks’.

The failing of politics

The influence of politics – other then incidental support – in western countries with respect to the growing power of ‘the Stacks’ is negligible. Maybe with the exception of the European Union that is entangled in rearguard actions by fining some eye-catching forms of monopolism. In contrast, the Chinese gouvernment is molding technology to its own aims, albeit not in an exemplary way. Supported by China’s own ‘Stacks’ – among them Alibaba and Baihe – the government is integrating smartphones, wearables and social networking services to establish the degree of ‘social credit’ of all of its citizens.

I expect a negative answer from Adam Greenfield to the question whether technological development is an autonomous force like the fast-floating river in Bas Boorsma’s analogy. In the USA large-scale scientific programs supervised by state-institutions like the legendary DARPA enabled major technological development. This carefully planned process resulted not only in the nuclear bomb but also in the discovery of all components of the later iPhone, which initial development – by the way – has been subsidized by the state too, as has been disclosed in detail by Mariana Mazzocato^[3].Nowadays the development of technology and its impact on employment is predominantly instigated by strategic choices made by ‘the Stacks’ and other technological companies.

As a consequence, any ‘deal’ regarding steering technological development or safeguarding the interest of citizens and society at large will have to target ‘the Stacks’.

The New Digital Deal revisited

This brings us back to the New Digital Deal. Targeting ‘the Stacks’ has to be preceded by decisive lawmaking at national or supranational level with respect to the aim and the conditions of digitalization for the purpose of society at large. Referring at Bas Boorsma the aim is enabling a networked and connected society with thriving activity in all nodes and free markets in between. A far from complete – list of conditions includes:

A strong and enforced anti-trust policy.
The discouragement of acquisitions in favor of collaboration within networks.
Unbundling heterogeneous conglomerates of companies (‘to big to fail’).
Governance guidelines discouraging short-termism, the stock markets included.
Considerable taxes on profits, which might be released by participation in state-coordinated research programs together with universities and other stakeholders.
A basic-income combined with the right at paid work for adult citizens.

An emerging digital community

I seriously doubt the ability of the bitterly divided European states to settle conditions as mentioned above in the near future. Meanwhile my expectations of lower level governments – cities in particular – are higher. At this level, high and low tech digital tools might be applied and enabled to prove their value in relation to challenges as traffic, healthy air, sustainable energy and safety. Bas Boorsma’s 20 building blocks of community digitalization will prove their value here. Each of these building blocks is actionable. The ‘community digitalization’ approach puts citizen’s needs and wants in the center and their fulfillment will come from a network of stakeholders. The local government can be held responsible for robust connectivity and digital safety and also for interoperability and the deployment of non-proprietary protocols.

Somewhere at an undetermined but eagerly awaited moment in the future a world of collaborating cities might force states to take their responsibility and issue the laws that are necessary to establish a New Digital Deal.

Did your appetite grown?

Start reading both books! Those who are attuned to practical solutions better start with Adam Greenfield’s because his well-documented approach to technology definitely will put practice in a new light. Also his way of phrasing is excellent. Readers with a more academic mind-set are advised to start with Boorsma’s book, because his life-long experience will be helpful in making theory actionable. And that is where many of us are waiting for.

^[1] The title of this short essay is inspired by the phrase ‘Culture eats strategy for breakfast’ attributed to management guru Peter Drucker. This post has been published before at Smart City Hub.

^[2]https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18626431-against-the-smart-city

^[3]https://wp.me/p32hqY-6p

February 18, 2019February 18, 2019

Hydrogen: Smart but as yet a promise for the future

Hydrogen storage. Photo NASA (public domain

Recently, Amsterdam^[1]published its plan for the energy transition. The obvious conclusion is that the town, like other towns[2], need a lot of hot water for district heating from as yet unknown underground sources and a decuple supply of wind and solar energy. Looking for other supplies, the idea of hydrogen soon comes up.

Looking for other supplies of energy, the idea of hydrogen soon comes up.

Before answering the question about the feasibility of hydrogen as an additional source of heat and electricity, some characteristics of hydrogen have to be discussed.

Advantages and disadvantages of hydrogen.

The process of electrolysis brings water into contact with electricity, resulting in oxygen and hydrogen. A 100% clean process, provided the use of energy from carbon-free sources. ‘Blue’ hydrogen occurs when the CO₂released during the production of electricity is collected and stored.

The storage of hydrogen is easy, particularly if conversed into ammonia. A kilo of hydrogen is producing the same amount of energy as a fully-fledged Tesla Power Wall. A tank with 60,000 m³of ammonia can deliver more than 200 million kilowatt hours. That is the annual production of 30 wind turbines on land. The problem with hydrogen is that 60% of energetic value is lost when electricity is used to make hydrogen and hydrogen is converted it into electricity again. Storing electricity in a battery yields only 5% loss of value.

Hydrogen plant in Rotterdam (blue containers) and the apartment complex (left center
) that will be heated with hydrogen. Photo: DNV GL

As a consequence, an obvious application of hydrogen is as a substitute for natural gas, which limits energy loss to 30%.

The Dutch grid operator Stedin will use green hydrogen gas to heat an apartment complex in Rotterdam. The hydrogen will be produced locally and transported via dedicated gas pipelines^[3](photo). An electric heat pump would have reduced energy use with 75%, given perfect isolation. Exactly to avoid the expenditures for isolation, housing corporations are considering hydrogen in older houses. However, the financial advantages of ‘green’ hydrogen, in the long run, have to be seen^[4]. Eventually, heating on hydrogen will be reserved for historic city centres, where few alternatives are available.

But what if hydrogen will become much cheaper? In the near future, the Gulf States will export cheap ‘green’ hydrogen converted into ammonia on a large scale. The production costs of solar energy in desert areas are considerably lower than in Europe, because the yield of solar panels and collectors is twice as large due to the high intensity of insulation^[5]. The feasibility of this alternative depends on geopolitical considerations in the first place: Many Western countries will be reluctant to become dependent again from ‘former’ oil producing countries. However, the advantages are obvious.

Another attractive prospect is that hydrogen (ammonia) offer a new destination for a couple of brand new but already depreciated energy plants. In this respect, an experiment in the Magnum power plant at the Eemshaven is of great importance. NUON is investigating whether this type of power plants can be used in a flexible way for the production of electricity while deploying various types of low- or no-emission fuels like hydrogen. In times of a surplus of green electricity, these plants can be used to produce hydrogen. If there is a shortage of electricity, the power plant can convert imported cheap hydrogen into electricity. In the future, probably one of the gas-powered energy plants in Amsterdam will be deployed in the same way.

e-Bike on hydrogen. The Alpha 2.0. Photo Pragma Industries

An also frequently mentioned application of hydrogen is transport^[6]. In the meantime, for all forms of transport – even ^e-bikes[7]– hydrogen models are available.

With the foregoing in mind, hydrogen as fuel for passenger cars – not to speak of bikes – is quite odd^[8]. Although the range is about 600 km and refueling is fast, the difference with electric cars is reducing fast. There are few car brands left that go for passenger cars on hydrogen; Toyota is one of these. The development of a hybrid car that runs on electricity with a battery that can be charged by a fuel cell while driving is noteworthy. Daimler is working on this, after having stopped the development of a fully hydrogen-powered passenger car recently.

For other means of transport, the verdict may be more positive^[9]. The rule is, the larger the desired range and the heavier the load, the more the benefits of hydrogen equal or outweigh the advantages of batteries. Examples are buses, lorries, but also planes^[10]and ships^[11]. The province of Groningen and QBuzz, a regional transport company, are experimenting with buses on hydrogen. The 20 buses will run on the long routes. This in contrast with the rest of the fleet, which will become electric because loading can be fitted into the timetable.

The conclusion is that the use of Dutch solar or wind energy for the production of hydrogen is costly and does not qualify mostly when electricity can be used directly^[12]. The availability of cheap imported hydrogen might be a gamechanger. In the first place, it is a ‘green’ alternative for the use of natural gas particular in buildings or parts of the town where a high level of isolation is costly or infeasible at all. In the second place it is an excellent alternative for long-term energy storing probably in combination with depreciated gas-powered energy plants. Buses, trucks, trains, ships and planes might be a third application.

^[1]MRA Warmte Koude – Grand Design 2.0: Handelingsperspectief en Analyse, september 2018 Metropoolregio Amsterdam

^[2]https://www.nijmegen.nl/fileadmin/bestanden/bestuur/bestuursdossiers/Nijmegen-aardgasvrij/Warmtevisie-Nijmegen-2018-180626.pdf

^[3]https://www.stedin.net/over-stedin/pers-en-media/persberichten/eerste-huizen-verwarmd-met-waterstof-komen-in-rotterdam-rozenburg

^[4]https://www.berenschot.nl/actueel/2018/oktober/co2-neutrale-warmtenetten/

^[5]http://www.wattisduurzaam.nl/5969/energie-opwekken/zonne-energie/zonnestroom-mexico-duikt-4-dollarcent-per-kilowattuur/

^[6]https://www.duurzaambedrijfsleven.nl/energie/30369/waterstof-toepassingen

^[7]https://www.pragma-industries.com/products/light-mobility/

^[8]https://medium.com/the-future-is-electric/hydrogen-still-has-some-potential-as-a-transportation-fuel-c693e8cdf375

^[9]https://www.businessinsider.nl/zijn-waterstofautos-in-de-toekomst-onmisbaar-deskundigen-denken-van-wel-dit-is-waarom/

^[10]https://www.hydrogenics.com/2015/10/15/hydrogenics-joins-german-h2fly-consortium-to-enable-zero-emission-passenger-flights-using-fuel-cell-technology/

^[11]https://www.ship-technology.com/features/featureis-there-a-future-for-hydrogen-powered-ship-propulsion-5731545/

^[12]http://www.wattisduurzaam.nl/15443/energie-beleid/tien-peperdure-misverstanden-over-wondermiddel-waterstof/

October 22, 2017October 23, 2017

Smart cities or resilient cities. Does it make any difference?

Worldwide 55 percent of all people is living in cities. They cover 4 percent of the landsurface, use 67 percent of all energy that is produced and are responsible for 70 percent of the emission of greenhouse gasses. Cities are not only the most important economic centres of the world, their political power is also increasing. Observers believe that growing sustainability will result in the first place from policies issued by the world’s largest cities instead of by national governments.

In order to express their intentions, many cities showcase themselves with adjectives such as ‘smart’, resilient’, sustainable’, ‘sharing’ and the like. These predicates refer to results that already have been accomplished, however small, but they express their mission for the future in the first place.

An inventory of current literature (1) resulted in more then 30 definitions of smart city. Most cited (348 times) is the definition of Caragliu (2009): ‘We believe a city to be smart when investments in human and social capital and and traditional (transport) and modern (ICT) communication infrastructure fuel sustainable economic growth and a high quality of life, with a wise management of natural resources, through participatory governance.’

Rotterdam

The first appearance of the concept resilience in connection with urban policy dates back to 2002. However, only in 2012 the frequency of searches in Google for resilient city started to boom.

In contrast with smart city, the number of definitions of resilient city is limited. Cities who call themselves resilient, like Rotterdam and The Hague in The Netherlands, claim to build capacity within individuals, communities, institutions, businesses, and systems to survive, adapt, and grow no matter what kinds of chronic stresses and acute shocks they experience.

Chronic stresses weaken the fabric of a city on a daily or cyclical basis. Examples include: high unemployment, overcrowded or inefficient public transportation systems, endemic violence and chronic food and water shortages. Acute shocks are sudden, sharp events that threaten a city. Examples include earthquakes, floods, disease outbreaks and terrorist attacks.

The concepts smart and resilient city have different roots. Large technology companies, like Cisco, IBM, Siemens, Philips started promoting to become a smart city expert ten years ago during the economic crisis as part of their strategy to find new markers and to attract new customers.

The use of the concept resilient city is promoted by international organizations and associations of cities in order to improve city’s capabilities to deal with hazards like the hurricanes Katarina in the New Orleans region (2005) and Sandy along the eastcoast of North America (2012).

As evidenced in the definition mentioned above, the concept hazard has been broadened to include external pressures in general, varying from climate change and environmental degradation to poverty and traffic congestion.

The concept smart city has also evolved. In another article I made a distinction between smart city 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0. These descriptions mark the evolution from the mere accentuation of the deployment of ICT as a key tool to fuel economic growth and competitiveness, to a multi-objective and participatory strategy capable to tackle problems of environmental deterioration, social equity and inclusion and building social capital.

The Resilient City Movement has been boosted in 2014 when the Rockefeller Foundation invested $100 million in the 100 Resilient Cities Challenge. Partly because its institutionalization, the policies of the cities partnering in the 100 Resilient City Challenge have more in common than those of the self appointed smart cities. The so-called City Resilience Framework, plays a key role in each of the participating city’s strategy.

The city Resilience framework

Based upon this framework, an index has been developed. Cities can calculate an indicator of their resilience with respect to the topics mentioned above and subsequently develop a strategy to improve weak points. The result of the analysis made in Rotterdam is indicated below. At this time 30 cities have published strategy reports to increase their resilience in the next decade. Among them are Rotterdam and Athens, a city that came with a brilliantly elaborated action report. A brand new report, Cities taking Action, written on occasion of the World Summit in July 2017, offers an anthology of what has been reached during the recent past within a selection of the 100 participating cities.

An analysis of definitions of smart and resilient cities and of characteristics attributed to each of these concepts is revealing a very broad overlap as is demonstrated in the box below.

As a consequence, some publications consider resilience as a characteristic of smart cities. Others believe that resilience will replace smart. I am not in favor of the assimilation of one of these terms by the other. Both concept have there own roots and are on their way to become meaningful for citizens. Therefore, they better can be treated as comparable, as is understood well by one of the platforms. Otherwise, the City Resilience Framework is an extremely useful policy making tool for smart cities because of its high level of elaboration.

Taking into account the convergence of definitions, both smart and resilient cities are building capabilities to deal with and prevent chronic stress and acute shocks, deploying a broad range of technologies. They enable individuals, communities, institutions and businesses to participate in the definition and execution of policies. They invest in the growth of human and social capital by education, meaningful work, communing, and sharing, and including all of its citizens to live in a decent way.

This is the 5th episode in a series of 6 articles about smart cities and the like. This article has already been publicised in the Smart City Hub

[1] Resilient cities: A systematic approach for developing cross-sectoral strategies in the face of climate change: Rocco Papa. Adrina Galderisi, Maria Christina Vigo Majello, Erica Saretta. in: TeMA Journal of Land Use Mobility and Environment 1 (2015)

October 13, 2017

How Google connects with the smart city movement

‘Whatever we do, we know the world doesn’t need another plan that falls into the same trap as previous ones: treating the city as a high-tech island rather than a place that reflects the personality of its local population’.

These words are from Daniel Doctoroff. In 2016 Larry Page (Google) invited him to be chairman/CEO of a new Alphabet enterprise, Sidewalks Labs. This company aims contributing to the transformation of urban environments through technologies that can drive efficiency, raise accountability, and foster a deeper sense of community. In others words, connecting Google’s expertise to the Smart City movement.’

Choosing Doctoroff as obvious. He was deputy mayor for city development in the Bloomberg administration. He is deeply concerned with the problems of American cities and at the same time he believes in the power of science and technology to solve them. In his view the Fourth Technological Revolution will integrate five core technologies:

ubiquitous connectivism
sensing
social networks
computer power
robotics.

Deployed together, these technologies will significantly decrease mobility costs for citizens and for the community at large as well, personalize services and improve safety.

Technologists and urbanists

The ultimate aim is improving the quality of life in cities and not the deployment of technology as such. Therefore Doctoroff carefully staffed Sidewalks Labs with technologists and urbanists. In his words, the first group is in general insensitive to the complexities of cities. The second group does not understand technology: Protecting the social fabric of cities comes first. Both groups talk different languages and do not communicate. Doctoroff believes that their successful collaboration can make the difference between Sidewalk Labs and technology-driven Smart City initiatives.

Shortening decision making

It is too early to judge whether Sidewalk Labs will fulfill these promises. The published research so far (a couple of titles is shown in this article) shows a great deal of involvement in the problems of the American cities, like the crumbling infrastructure, the lack of accessible health care, and the unaffordability of housing. The modeling of these problems, taking into account realistic population data, enables fast simulations of the impact of solutions and thus shortening of length of the decision making process. This research has revealed ingenious redesign of the public transport network, new models of integrated heath care and proposals that might significantly lower construction costs.

The implementation of solutions

Labs does not limit itself to figuring out solutions; the company is also taking care of their implementation by creating start-ups. For instance, Flow is mapping traffic and (public) transport pattern to optimize networks and thus meaningfully increasing mobility. Link NYC is replacing the 7000 payphones with super-fast free Wi-Fi hubs, paid by advertising on the large hub displays.

In its health care research Sidewalk Labs made clear that most medical problems have social and environmental roots, for instance bad food habits and air pollution. At the same time health care in the US is more expensive than in any other OECD country and its quality, accessibility in particular, is unsatisfying. When it comes to solutions, Sidewalk Labs is focusing on e-health, for instance monitoring patients and consulting physicians at distance.

Mismatch between definition of problems and that of solutions?

At this point I became aware of a growing feeling of discomfort with the strategy of Sidewalk Labs.
Labs is brilliant in the realm of defining and modeling problems, freed from any reductionist bias. However, its search for solutions is technology-focused, for instance apps that offer real time affordable solutions for renting apartments or apps that shows vacant parking lots. Not to mention the free Wi-Fi facilities in New York. Flaws in the Smart City approach result partly from a technological bias in the definition of problems. Sidewalk Labs definitely cannot be blamed in this respect. But it fails to integrate technical and non-technical approaches in the the solution of problems. Exactly this is corresponding with distinction between Smart City 2.0 and Smart City 3.0 that I made recently.

I assume that the focus on technological solutions in inherent in Sidewalks Lab’s connection with Alphabet. The ultimate ambition of Sidewalks Labs is to reimagine cities from the Internet up. That is why Alphabet has created the company. In the end, Sidewalks Labs’ mission is paving the way for new services to develop or to deliver by Google.
However, cities, their administrators and inhabitants are yearning comprehensive solutions for their problems. These solutions demand an integrated approach deploying high-tech, low-tech and also no-tech solutions. Here Sidewalks Labs falls short, in spite of Daniel Doctoroff inspiring citation above. Probably ongoing discussion between the technologists and the urbanists will enable this integration in the end.

This is the 4th episode in a series of 6 posts dealing with the ambiguities in smart city development. They were published earlier in smart city hub