A cross-disciplinary path to healthy and energy efficient buildings

Abstract

This paper complements existing Smart City taxonomies with a case study of concrete cross-boundary collaboration between actors from diverse disciplines and institutions. The paper explores technical, social and organizational aspects of indoor climate in public buildings in Copenhagen, and outlines a digital platform (skoleklima.dk/climify.org) for the visualization and evaluation of locally produced data. The platform is to improve temporarily challenging situations ‘right-in-time’, help to solve continuous problematic conditions in the buildings and provide a scientific data infrastructure for better political decision-making. Furthermore, the paper suggests that research in active public organizations (‘living labs’) unfolds in erratic and dynamic trajectories, and in order to attain comprehensive understanding and reach innovative solutions, involved actors need to explore and intertwine diverse technical, social, political and organizational circumstances. With an empirically outset, the paper thus opens for new contextual driven understandings of cross-boundary collaboration in Smart City development.