Smart Technology is quickly becoming commonplace in countries, states, and cities as they plan for the future in a post-pandemic world. This Thanksgiving season, we wanted to highlight some of the things that we are thankful for, and that we believe are changing lives whether we are openly recognizing them or not.
We would be remiss to not recognize the forward-thinking developers and architects in the industry. As time goes by, a handful of them are recognizing the importance of technology design being assigned long before a shovel enters the ground. An incalculable amount of time and money is saved when our clients approach us prior to the SD phase. The Level-1 team is passionate about being ahead of the game and prepared for moves, adds, and changes five to twenty years into the future.
We are thankful for those developers and architects who discuss start technology design early, but here are some specific solutions for which we are extra thankful:
Smart Solutions We Are Thankful For in 2022:
Smart Cities – Many cities across the world have gone to great lengths to make a Smart City model work for their citizens.
Norway is leading the way in many ways when it comes to Smart Technology. They created a national roadmap for smart cities that was developed in collaboration with Design and Architecture Norway (DOGA), the Norwegian Smart City Network, and Nordic Edge, with input from more than 150 players in different sectors, disciplines, and levels of government from all over the country. The roadmap serves as a way for all parties to use the same guidelines and work toward the same goals, together. This collaboration, with its ability to involve a wide variety of stakeholders, is incredibly admirable.
In Singapore, an effort to create a traffic-free city-state has taken hold as part of the country’s “Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X)” project, which set a goal for all public transportation on city streets to be driverless. This, along with a $43.5 billion investment in sustainable infrastructure, including subways and light rail, showcase Singapore’s commitment to smart technology for today and for generations to come.
Helsinki wants to be the most functional city in the world, and by digitizing services and developing smart urban solutions, it may become just that. Kalasatama is one of several smart residential developments in Helsinki and is noted for featuring renewable energy solutions, including electric cars, self-driving buses, underground waste collection, rooftop saunas, and digital housing and living services. Additionally, the Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) concept was developed in Helsinki, which enables city residents to purchase full seamless transport chains for all destinations, eliminating the need to own a vehicle.
Greener Energy provides the highest environmental benefit as a power source and includes power produced by natural sources such as solar, wind, geothermal, and low-impact hydroelectric. Green Energy is growing in use and interest, which is encouraging! We think everyone should be thankful for the growing interest in these methods of creating power and look forward to a time when more leaders in our country start discussing smart regulation so that new alternative utilities can thrive and grow.
Residential Technology – Technology-based residential necessities like door locks, thermostats, programmable lighting, and intercoms are growing in popularity year by year. Consumers enjoy the ease and comfort of being able to check or change the status of these items from their computer or smartphone without needing to be at home to do so. These items are quickly becoming fully integrated, communicating with each other and working together so they can be activated with a single keystroke. Some of our favorite developers are integrating their IoT into proprietary apps. We’re thankful that developers are discovering this technology and including them in their new buildings.
As 2022 draws to a close, we are excited about the future of Smart Technology and its implementation in cities across the globe. We look forward to working with these companies, architects, and contractors on building Smart Cities in your neighborhood!