Smart Tree: An Architectural, Greening and ICT Multidisciplinary Approach to Smart Campus Environments

Abstract

At present, climate change, pollution, and uncontrolled urbanism threaten not only natural ecosystems, but also the urban environment. Approaches to mitigate these challenges and able to provide an alternative for the use of the space are deemed to be multidisciplinary, combining architecture, vegetation integration, circular economy and information and communications technologies (ICT). University campuses are a key scenario to evaluate such solutions as their student and research community is intrinsically willing to support these experiences and provide a wide knowledge on the fields necessary for their design and implementation. However, the creation of areas combining usability and sustainability is commonly lacking a multidisciplinary approach combining all these different perspectives. Hence, the present work aims to overcome this limitation by the development of a novel integrated approach for campus spaces for co-working and leisure, namely a “Smart Tree”, where novel architecture, furniture design, flora integration, environmental sensoring and communications join together. To this end, a survey of the literature is provided, covering related approaches as well as general principles behind them. From this, the general requirements and constraints for the development of the Smart Tree area are identified, establishing the main interactions between the architecture, greening and ICT perspectives. Such requirements guide the proposed system design and implementation, whose impact on the environment is analyzed. Finally, the research challenges and lessons learned for their development are identified in order to support future works.

A Bibliometric Analysis of Circular Economies through Sustainable Smart Cities

“…green cluster mainly focuses on research work related to green infrastructure [56] and the environment, highlighting nature and biodiversity [57,58] circular strategies and urban regeneration [59] and the Internet of Things [60]. The blue cluster focuses on smart cities, waste management [48,61], the circular economy, urban branding [48,62], smart technology, and sustainable development [63].…”

“…The aforementioned concentration of efforts, together with the advantages The other clusters are anchored by Arias (green) with 12 items, anchored by Benltoufa (blue) with 11 items, and anchored by Andrade (yellow) with 11 items. The green cluster mainly focuses on research work related to green infrastructure [56] and the environment, highlighting nature and biodiversity [57,58] circular strategies and urban regeneration [59] and the Internet of Things [60]. The blue cluster focuses on smart cities, waste management [48,61], the circular economy, urban branding [48,62], smart technology, and sustainable development [63].…”

Community- and Data-Driven Services for Multi-Policy Pedestrian Routing

“…The idea of a smart university campus is approached by Fortes et al, who presented a framework for integration and representation of novel architecture, furniture design, flora, environment sensors, and communications under the name of "Smart Tree" [20]. A smart campus must be constantly monitored to assure that the functionalities are working as intended and maintenance is performed consistently, and this can be managed with various technologies [21], such as IoT and artificial intelligence.…”

Realization of Urban Perception Art: Painting Expressions of Internet of Things Technologies in Urban Environments

“…Traditional urban perception mainly relies on people's senses, such as vision, hearing, and touch, while the development of modern technology has brought new possibilities for urban perception. As an expression of human emotions and thoughts, art carries observation, thinking, and imagination of the real world (Fortes et al, 2021). As a special form of art, urban perception art is dedicated to expressing and conveying individuals' perceptions and experiences of the urban environment through artistic means.…”