State of the Art in Open Platforms for Collaborative Urban Design and Sharing of Resources in Districts and Cities

Barry Hayes, Dorota Kamrowska-Zaluska, Aleksandar Petrovski and Cristina Jiménez-Pulido
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Barry Hayes: School of Engineering and Architecture, University College Cork, T12 K8AF Cork, Ireland
Dorota Kamrowska-Zaluska: Department of Urban Design and Regional Planning, Faculty of Architecture, Gdansk University of Technology, 80-384 Gdansk, Poland
Aleksandar Petrovski: Faculty of Architecture, Ss Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, Skopje 1000, North Macedonia
Cristina Jiménez-Pulido: Research Group Sustainability in Construction and Industry (giSCI-UPM), Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, 28040 Madrid, Spain

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 9, 1-16

Abstract: This work discusses recent developments in sharing economy concepts and collaborative co-design technology platforms applied in districts and cities. These developments are being driven both by new technological advances and by increased environmental awareness. The paper begins by outlining the state of the art in smart technology platforms for collaborative urban design, highlighting a number of recent examples. The case of peer-to-peer trading platforms applied in the energy sector is then used to illustrate how sharing economy concepts and their enabling technologies can accelerate efforts towards more sustainable urban environments. It was found that smart technology platforms can encourage peer-to-peer and collaborative activity, and may have a profound influence on the future development of cities. Many of the research and development projects in this area to date have focused on demonstrations at the building, neighbourhood, and local community scales. Scaling these sharing economy platforms up to the city scale and beyond has the potential to provide a number of positive environment impacts. However, significant technical and regulatory barriers to wider implementation exist, and realising this potential will require radical new approaches to the ownership and governance of urban infrastructure. This paper provides a concise overview of the state of the art in this emerging field, with the aim of identifying the most promising areas for further research.

Keywords: smart cities; sharing economy; peer to peer energy trading; collaborative urban design; co-design; smart platforms; urban energy infrastructure; scale jumping (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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