Pilot 1: Facilitating Building Construction

This pilot will take place during the construction of a new building at Warsaw, Poland. More specifically, it will be an educational building on the campus of the University of Warsaw with 6 overground storeys and 2 underground storeys. The building area will be 2972.36 m2 with 17,508.01 m2 total overground area, 9081.42 m2 total underground area and 122,498.13 m3 total volume. Inside the building there will be 30 classrooms for lectures, seminars and computer classes; rooms for quiet work and a lecture hall for nearly 400 people. The building will also have house laboratories adapted to conducting individual and group research in the field of psychological sciences. There will be a parking lot for bicycles in front of the building, and an urban farming community garden on the roof. The project also includes application of solutions for sustainable development and environmental protection, e.g. energy-saving electrical installations, the use of heat recovery systems and renewable energy sources. This pilot will deploy the services at building level (DT generation and DT enrichment). It will test the VR/AR-enabled DT generation and will validate its applicability and effectiveness in facilitating building construction works. Also, this pilot will use the DT enrichment service to check the quality of the construction by utilising thermal imaging from drones.

The BUILDSPACE services are expected to eliminate the need for measurement and surveying processes on the construction site and reduce construction errors due to early detection of deviations from the design-intent.

Pilot 2: Energy Demand Analysis, Forecast & Climate Resilience

Riga is the capital city of Latvia with more than 600 000 inhabitants, located in Northern Europe, in the Baltic region. It is the largest city in Latvia and an important economic, cultural and political centre. Riga is participating in the EU mission "100 Climate Neutral and Smart Cities by 2030" to work with citizens and stakeholders to implement innovative approaches to reduce emissions, accelerate climate action and become climate neutral by 2030.

At a city scale, the service for Building Environment Climate Scenarios will be tested in Riga, creating reliable energy demand forecast considering climate change effects. Different measures for energy performance building improvement will be assessed and benefits in terms of energy savings as well as associated costs will be estimated.

At the building level, 1 or 2 municipal buildings from the part of Riga – Torņakalns neighborhood will be selected for testing Digital Twin enrichment service. They will be evaluated in existing buildings to perform buildings inspection for potential renovation.

Energy Demand Analysis, Forecast, and Climate Resilience services are crucial for Riga city to ensure efficient resource allocation, plan for future energy needs, adapt to climate change impacts, promote sustainable development, and reap economic benefits. These services are vital for the city's long-term sustainability, resilience, and well-being of its residents.

The BUILDSPACE services under test are expected to provide key insights on the planning and assessment of policies and measures to support sustainable energy management at building and city level. The pilot will provide specific evidence to support informed decision making for interventions (focusing on building energy retrofitting) at buildings and city scale.

Pilot 3: Urban Heat Analysis and Resilience

Piraeus, a prominent Greek urban center and significant European port, faces several challenges related to urban heat and climate change resilience. With a high population density (15,065 citizens/km2) and limited green spaces (1.56 m2 per capita), the city is primarily characterized by abandoned industrial buildings occupying 11,000 acres. To address these issues, local authorities are focused on making informed decisions and improving the building infrastructure's resilience.

As part of the project, several services will be tested: SE1: DT generation service (screen-based mode), SE2: DT-enrichment, and SE4: Urban Heat Analysis and Resilience. The DT generation and enrichment services will be applied to 1 or 2 municipal buildings to identify areas for intervention and enhance their monitoring capabilities. At the city scale, the focus will be on analyzing urban heat and resilience, including evaluating social vulnerability to heat, within a selected pilot area.

The pilot aims to assess the high-fidelity multi-modal DT's effectiveness at the building scale, evaluating its applicability, costs, and efficacy in building monitoring and hotspot identification. At the city scale, the pilot seeks to provide a decision-making tool by analyzing urban heat in current and future scenarios and offering insights into social vulnerability to heat.

Pilot 4: Urban Flood Analysis and Resilience

The Slovenian case study will focus on the City of Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. Ljubljana spreads between two main rivers – the Ljubljanica River and the main Slovenian river Sava. The urban and agricultural area between the two rivers is a living and working place for almost 500.000 Slovenian inhabitants. Ljubljana has a long history of various flood protection measures due to its vulnerability to flooding. However, while acquiring these measures, floods still heavily threaten many parts of the city. There are ongoing investments in structural flood protection measures (dams, reservoirs, and river restoration). Still, due to intensive urbanization, reduced porous surfaces, and low drainage capacity, urban floods will remain in some parts of the city. Last year’s extreme rainfall with a 250-year return period revealed the city’s most endangered buildings. In addition to all underpasses, more than 500 public and private buildings were flooded during this flood event.

At the building level, the pilot will implement the SE1: DT generation service (in screen-based mode) in a selected building in Ljubljana. Combined with the locally available public or internal data, this pilot will test the urban flood resilience service (SE5) and develop guidelines (tailored to the pilot area) for increasing building resilience and promoting blue-green infrastructure design and implementation.

The pilot is expected to extract guidelines at the building and city scale to mitigate the risk of flood damages. In addition, the pilot will assess the impact of the implemented blue-green infrastructure measures' resilience building and estimate the proposed measures' benefits and costs.