Winning Projects “Seed Money” One Health

Écotone Métropolitain: Un dispositif analytique et prospectif pour concevoir une ville saine et durable.

TEAM:

MER Elena COGATO LANZA (Main Leader), arch. Marine Villaret, Lab-U (Laboratoire d’Urbanisme) MER Luca PATTARONI, LaSur (Laboratoire de Sociologie Urbaine)

En Suisse, les outils légaux relevant d’enjeux alimentaires, environnementaux ou de densité gouvernent les milieux agricole, naturel et urbain en vase clos. Ces derniers se trouvent en compétition car ils dépendent des mêmes ressources (espace, eau, sol), avec des risques accrus pour la santé des êtres vivants. Comment établir les conditions d’une approche projectuelle multisectorielle dans l’objectif de garantir une ville saine pour les humains et non-humains ?
En considérants les trois milieux comme appartenant à un même écosystème métropolitain, le concept d’écotone permettra de construirons un regard interdisciplinaire sur leurs espaces d’interfaces, lieux des risques sanitaires majeurs mais aussi lieux précurseurs de synergies.

 

Risk evaluation of mosquito-borne disease transmission through urban commutes pathways

TEAM:

Prof. Claudia Binder, Emanuele Massaro – HERUS Lab

More than 80% of the world’s population is at risk from at least one vector-borne disease, and more than half at risk from two or more. At city scale level, most of the studies tend to restrict their analysis to the individuals’ risk to acquire the disease, the incidence and prevalence of the disease, its severity and long-term impact on the health of the population. This is the obvious first step, but it does not consider many important aspects that characterize the impact of the mobility at the city scale level. We integrate both stylized and data driven model of mobility in an agent-based transmission model in which humans and mosquitoes are represented as agents and go through the epidemic states of dengue. We monitor with numerical simulations the system–level response to the epidemic by comparing our results with the reported cases during the recent dengue outbreaks in Singapore.

 

Activity-based HVAC control for enhanced indoor air quality and thermal comfort

TEAM:

Prof. Dusan Licina, Tenure Track Assistant Professor (HOBEL), Prof. Alexandre Alahi (VITA)

Human indoor activities are directly linked to levels of various indoor air pollutants and thermal comfort experience. Therefore, accurate assessment of occupancy metrics (e.g., occupancy number and their activities) is important for better control of indoor environments. It is evident that sustainable buildings of the future will increasingly rely on sensors to control heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems to manage indoor air quality and thermal comfort. However, there is limited information available on means to cost- effectively characterize occupant metrics in all types of buildings. With advancements in Artificial Intelligence, more precisely Computer Vision, an opportunity has been opened up for better control of HVAC systems. This project aims to investigate a novel vision-based human activity detector in order to improve the control algorithm of HVAC system. Better HVAC control is ultimately important for improved human comfort, health and well- being.