Tuvalu is a small island nation that is, due to climate change, in real danger of disappearing from the world map. Rising sea levels threaten not only to submerge the islands themselves but also to erase the cultural and social life tied to them. The ecological catastrophe is not only a crisis of nature — it is also a threat to the existence of people, communities, and traditions. That is why protecting the environment alone is not enough. Sustainable development must also include cultural and social sustainability: the preservation of identity, memory, and meaning in a changing world. In this, digital technology can play a vital role.
I wrote about Tuvalu in the publication of the Creatives in the Metaverse project (Halonen 2023). Tuvalu is a nation vanishing from the Earth as it is submerged by rising seas. In the previous year, Tuvalu’s Foreign Minister Simon Kofe (2022) gave a stirring speech at COP26 about how the island nation aims to preserve at least part of its cultural heritage in the metaverse. That speech launched Tuvaluans, heritage documentarians, and metaverse developers on an innovative journey. This blog post takes a closer look at how the process has progressed.
Digital Twins: Keeping Culture Alive
By the end of 2023, Tuvalu had completed detailed 3D renderings of all 124 islands and islets, documenting topography, shorelines, and environmental data. Collaboration with organizations such as SPC Digital Earth Pacific and PLACE enables climate monitoring and planning of sustainability actions through this digital twin model.
Cultural heritage often arises in connection with specific physical locations. For instance, stories and dances may be tied to a particular stone or tree that gives context to the content. While video recordings allow such elements to be preserved for viewing, in the metaverse, users can walk around the stone, wander through villages, and participate collectively in preserving and passing on cultural heritage to future generations. The metaverse thus allows for the re-experiencing and continuation of life connected to Tuvalu’s islands, shores, and communities.
In addition to mapping physical spaces, a systematic digital collection of intangible cultural heritage has been built. The collection already includes a vast archive of images, audio recordings, and videos of Tuvalu’s vibrant cultural expressions—songs, dances, storytelling, and interviews. A web repository created in collaboration with the German Archaeological Institute’s Rising Nations Initiative (n.d.) makes these treasures globally accessible, allowing Tuvaluans and anyone interested to explore the nation’s rich culture. At present, the metaverse models themselves (Unreal Engine versions) are being published gradually, though they are currently available primarily to research partners.
Digital Sovereignty: A Nation Without Physical Borders
In his classic book Imagined Communities (1983), social theorist Benedict Anderson argues that a nation is primarily a cultural construct, maintained through shared stories, memories, and symbols—not necessarily through physical contact or geographic borders. At the time of the book’s publication, there was no UN climate panel or internet, let alone extended reality, which was mostly confined to science fiction. Yet Tuvalu’s digital transition illustrates the very essence of Anderson’s thesis: even if a country disappears from the map, its cultural and societal identity can persist without physical presence.
Tuvalu is also a pioneer in developing digital governance models to support its digital nationhood. Blockchain-based digital identity documents, passports, and registries for births and marriages are being introduced. The country’s constitution has been updated to ensure state sovereignty regardless of physical territory, creating a legal precedent for other nations threatened by climate change (Tuvalu: the Digital Nation State Programme, 2024). Several countries have already recognized Tuvalu as a digital nation. In practice, the aim is to safeguard Tuvalu’s international status, citizens’ voting rights, and maritime boundaries, even if the country were to sink. (https://www.tuvalu.tv/; Gonzalez 2025.)
Challenges Ahead
This ambitious initiative also faces challenges. Ongoing debates question whether digital preservation can truly replace the deep connection to physical environments. Critics, including former leaders, highlight the difficulties of achieving international legal recognition for digital citizenship. Nevertheless, Tuvalu’s groundbreaking project has brought the country to the forefront of global discussions on climate change, sovereignty, and cultural survival.
Tuvalu is not alone. Other nations such as Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, the Maldives, and Vanuatu face a similar fate: rising seas threaten to erase their physical territories. For instance, Kiribati has already purchased land in neighboring countries for potential population relocation, and the Maldives is constructing artificial islands to sustain its population.
These countries stand on the frontline of climate change. They are not responsible for the crisis, but they are among its first and worst-affected victims. That is why Tuvalu’s digital twin is not just a technical innovation—it is a vital strategy for cultural survival, the preservation and continuation of cultural heritage, and the maintenance of an entire nation’s identity. It offers continuity and acts as a powerful example for other communities confronting the same existential challenges. I sincerely hope it will also function as a space for maintaining community, passing down traditions to future generations, and creating new heritage together. In the face of catastrophe, it offers hope for continuity and serves as a model for other communities facing similar threats.
References
Anderson, B. (1983). Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism. London.
Halonen, K. (2023). A New Home in the Metaverse? New Art is Born in the Metaverse. In Halonen & Hero (Eds.), Creatives in the Web3 Era: Dreams, Challenges and Earning Opportunities (Taito series, pp. 89–96). Metropolia University of Applied Sciences.
Tämän blogin kirjoituksia ja toimitustyötä on tuettu vuoden 2023 loppuun asti Euroopan unionin sosiaalirahaston Luovat metaversumissa esiselvityksen osarahoituksen avulla ja vuoden 2024 alusta Euroopan unionin sosiaalirahaston osarahoittaman LUME – luovat web3-ajassa -hankkeen avulla.
Tässä blogissa käydään ammattilaiskeskustelua web3 kehittymisen myötä avautuvista uusista toiminta- ja ansaintamahdollisuuksista sekä ajankohtaisista ilmiöistä. Blogissa julkaistaan asiantuntijatekstejä, haastatteluja ja kantaa ottavia tekstejä, videoita, podcasteja tai niiden yhdistelmiä. Kirjoittajat ovat Metropolian ja sen yhteistyöorganisaatioiden asiantuntijoita. Haluatko julkaista Luovat web3 ajassa -blogissa? Ota yhteys päätoimittajaan sähköpostitse.
– Katri Halonen (päätoimittaja), yliopettaja, Metropolia Ammattikorkeakoulu, katri.halonen@metropolia.fi, p. 050 362 6407 – Leena Björkqvist, lehtori, Metropolia Ammattikorkeakoulu – Jyrki Simovaara, lehtori, Humanistinen ammattikorkeakoulu – Mayreth Wolff, lehtori Humanistinen ammattikorkeakoulu
Marja Konttinen
is an expert in the LUME project, co-funded by the European Union, which looks into new revenue model opportunities in the creative industries. She is a digital marketing and creative technology professional with extensive experience in mobile games, metaverse and Web3. Marja's crypto wallet contains digital art, film stills and random meme coins. Contact
Lynch self-funded and launched davidlynch.com in December 2001: years before YouTube, Spotify, or the creator economy had names.
Many major technological revolutions in cinema and music have been driven by artists. Bergman shot Saraband digitally in 2003. Sinatra pushed for the LP format in the 1950s. Prince released music-on-demand in 1999. They were artists who recognised something new and committed to it before the business model was obvious.
David Lynch is a great example of this in the internet age. When the web was still mostly dial-up static and blinking cursors, he launched a website that anticipated almost everything we now take for granted about the creator economy: subscription content, daily micro-formats, direct-to-audience release, multiple revenue streams, all aligned to a personal brand. He did it because he was genuinely curious about a new channel and asked himself the most productive creative question: what does this channel empower me to make that I couldn't make anywhere else?
A maker first, always
To understand Lynch's approach to the internet, you need to understand how he approached everything. He was always the creator first. Everything else, the platform, the format, the revenue, followed the work. He began his career as a painter, and his first film happened almost by accident.
Lynch's early ambition was to become a painter, and after studying at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, he created his first film, a 60-second animation entitled Six Men Getting Sick (1967), for an experimental painting and sculpture contest. The moving image was just another surface to paint on.
His feature debut, Eraserhead (1977), is one of the defining examples of creative commitment in cinema history. It was shot almost entirely at night; funding was never constant; production stopped many times when the money dried up. Lynch supported himself by delivering The Wall Street Journal and lived on set for a time. The sets were largely built from scavenged materials. He took five years to finish it.
"The life in that world… there was nothing like it. Things go so fast when you're making a movie now that you're not able to give the world enough — what it deserves."
— David Lynch on making Eraserhead, from Lynch on Lynch (1997)
The film cost almost nothing to make, but it did not reach audiences through normal cinema. It spread through the midnight movie circuit: one-off late-night screenings in a handful of theatres, where you had to already know it existed to find it. Ben Barenholtz of Libra Films persuaded a local theatre owner to run it as a midnight feature, where it continued for a year, then ran for ninety-nine weeks at New York's Waverly Cinema, had a year-long midnight run in San Francisco, and a three-year tenure in Los Angeles. That cult of the initiated eventually earned the film seven million dollars. Long before the internet gave Lynch a new channel, he had already spent a career reaching devoted audiences directly through late-night rooms, word of mouth, entirely outside the mainstream.
This same instinct would drive his approach to digital technology but it wasn’t easy. As late as 1996, Lynch was still cutting films on a flatbed Kem system and told an interviewer flatly: "I personally hate Avid. I haven't a clue how it works." He was one of the great directors in the world, and he had no interest in learning the tools the rest of the industry had already adopted.
What changed was the website. When he began shooting short pieces for davidlynch.com with a cheap Sony PD150, a consumer camera he initially dismissed as a toy, he started teaching himself, scene by scene, not quite knowing what he was making. Gradually, he started liking the camera more. "These 35mm film cameras are starting to look like dinosaurs to me. It's all so slow. It kills a lot of possibilities. With digital video everything is lighter. You can think on your feet and catch things."By the time he came to edit Inland Empire, something had shifted entirely. He did it all himself, on Final Cut Pro, in his home office, over six months. "I absolutely love editing," he said afterwards. "When you go in there on your own you discover elements that you wouldn't if you were one step removed, like an ordinary editor." The man who hated digital and had no idea how it worked had become someone who spent half a year alone with software he had taught himself, finding a film he didn't know he was making.
"These 35mm film cameras are starting to look like dinosaurs to me. It's all so slow. It kills a lot of possibilities. With digital video everything is lighter. You can think on your feet and catch things."
By the time he came to edit Inland Empire, something had shifted entirely. He did it all himself, on Final Cut Pro, in his home office, over six months. "I absolutely love editing," he said afterwards. "When you go in there on your own you discover elements that you wouldn't if you were one step removed, like an ordinary editor." The man who hated digital and had no idea how it worked had become someone who spent half a year alone with software he had taught himself, finding a film he didn't know he was making.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6Dyl1V_Hvg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6Dyl1V_Hvg
Lynch did not sit down one day and decide to master digital filmmaking. He picked up a cheap camera for his website, treated it like a toy, and let the process lead him somewhere he hadn't anticipated. The sideways move, step down in prestige, smaller in scale, technically unfamiliar, turned out to be the biggest step forward of the late part of his career. He probably didn't see it coming.
The website nobody thought was a good idea
With the rising popularity of the internet, Lynch decided to use it as a distribution channel, releasing several new series he had created exclusively on his website, davidlynch.com, which went online on December 10, 2001.
Some context. In 2001, YouTube didn't exist. Netflix was a DVD postal service. Spotify was a decade away. The conventional wisdom, even among forward-thinking media people, was that the internet was a place to promote your work, not to release it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JY69kb64M_8&list=PLUWV-eLxVgFEqLQp9UeXGusHR9X2BFB3Q
Lynch opened the self-funded site in December, available only through a monthly $9.97 subscription, but with its official launch, began offering $7.79 individual subscriptions to three episodic series he was creating, beginning with Dumbland. Next up was the surrealist sitcom Rabbits, and later, a Twin Peaks-like drama called Axxon N. A separate site store offered a digitally remastered high-definition transfer to DVD of Eraserhead, a collection of his short films, posters, T-shirts, arty nude photos and other merchandise. The site also included an Experiments area and a chat room where Lynch and friends sometimes participated.
In 2002, Lynch had already built a tiered subscription model, a per-episode purchase option, a merchandise store, a DVD arm, an experimental content section, and a community space. He had essentially invented what we now call a creator platform, years before the term existed.
The content was characteristically uncompromising. DumbLand is an adult animated web series created and voiced by Lynch. The style is intentionally crude both in terms of presentation and content, with limited animation. Each three-to-five-minute episode took Lynch ten days to make. Dumbland was commissioned by gaming and entertainment website Shockwave.com in 2000. After the dot-com bubble burst, the episodes were eventually released through Lynch's website in 2002. Rather than shelve the work when his platform collapsed, Lynch built his own. He didn't wait for someone else to give him the infrastructure; he created it.
Example of a chat conversation on lynch.com, from Reddit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DGp5ijBGlI
The OG content creator
If Dumbland was Lynch experimenting with the format of animated shorts online, Rabbits pushed the experiment further, into something stranger, more formally ambitious, and genuinely unlike anything that had been made for the web before.
Rabbits is a 2002 web series of eight horror episodes created by David Lynch, though Lynch himself referred to it as a sitcom. It depicts three humanoid rabbits, played by Scott Coffey, Laura Elena Harring and Naomi Watts, in a room. Their disjointed conversations are interrupted by a laugh track. The series is presented with the tagline "In a nameless city deluged by a continuous rain… three rabbits live with a fearful mystery."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66XPYk9bdhc&list=PLTPQcjlcvvXHcfdpIaKCDM7NjU_Y2zqax
All three leads, Watts, Harring, and Coffey, had appeared the previous year in Lynch's critically acclaimed Mulholland Drive. Lynch shot Rabbits in 2002 on digital video. The shoots happened at night, on a set built in his backyard. The film uses major Hollywood talent, a carefully designed set, and Angelo Badalamenti's score, but it was made in a garden at night and released episodically to paying subscribers online.
The content itself plays deliberately with the sitcom form. In addition to disjointed conversations, whenever one of the rabbits enters the room, the unseen audience whoops and applauds at great length, much like in a sitcom. The rabbits themselves, remain serious throughout. In some episodes, mysterious events take place, including the appearance of a burning hole in the wall and the intrusion of a deep voice coming from a disfigured face projected on the back wall, suspended in a sinister red light.
The episodes of Rabbits were gradually uploaded on davidlynch.com, with access available through subscription. The series was available to both members of the site and via pay per view. This dual model is now standard across every streaming platform on earth.
Lynch used some of the Rabbits footage as well as previously unseen footage featuring Rabbits characters in his 2006 feature film Inland Empire, associating the Rabbits with three mysterious Polish characters who live in a house in the woods. The web series became source material for his most ambitious feature, and Lynch and his producers decided to explore self-distribution with the release of Inland Empire, a feature film bypassing the traditional studio system entirely.
The Weather Reports: daily content before daily content was a thing
The element of Lynch's internet work that attracted the most enduring affection is the one that sounds, on paper, most absurd: a daily weather forecast delivered by himself from his painting studio in Los Angeles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wZE9FMK3aA&t=50s
Lynch began these daily weather forecasts in 2005, in the form of a daily phone call to LA radio station INDIE 103.1. He later moved them to his own website, producing them until 2010. Shortly thereafter, he uploaded the daily video reports to his avant-garde website, created before the days of social media. YouTube had just launched, and it would be a good ten years until podcasts gained popularity.
When asked whether it was an art project, Lynch deflected completely. He told the New York Times: "People are kind of interested in the weather. It's not artistic. It's just me sitting there in my painting studio."
The weather reports were Lynch doing something simple, consistent, and genuinely himself, every single day, and building an audience through regularity and authenticity. This is the founding logic of every successful content creator who came after him. Consistency and genuine voice beat production value every time.The reports always ended the same way: "Have a great day, everyone." When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, Lynch brought them back on YouTube. Within a year, his 365 weather reports accumulated ten million views on YouTube, and his David Lynch Theater channel reached over 270,000 subscribers. One particularly heartbreaking weather report came after his friend and frequent collaborator, composer Angelo Badalamenti, passed. Lynch reported no weather conditions that day, instead simply saying "Today, no music." That is the kind of moment no algorithm can manufacture and no strategy can plan for.
The Interview Project: reinventing documentary for the web
In 2009, Lynch turned his attention to a different kind of online experiment. In the David Lynch Interview Project, Americans were randomly selected and asked to share their personal stories. The team found people driving along roads, going into bars, going into different locations. During the 70 days the project was active, the team travelled 20,000 miles and conducted 121 interviews.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNpYymysUQo
The web series was created by his son Austin Lynch and Jason S., with music by Dean Hurley, and launched on June 1, 2009 at interviewproject.davidlynch.com. Each episode was three to five minutes long, the perfect length for web consumption at a time when most filmmakers were still thinking in terms of broadcast slots.
This kind of project would have needed a broadcaster, a distributor, and a significant budget to reach an audience through traditional channels. By releasing it online, episode by episode, Lynch could build an audience progressively, let word of mouth do the distribution work, and maintain full creative control.
What he actually believed about creativity and new tools
Lynch's creative philosophy is laid out most clearly in his 2006 book Catching the Big Fish, and it speaks directly to anyone standing in front of a new technology wondering what to do with it.
"Ideas are like fish. If you want to catch little fish, you can stay in the shallow water. But if you want to catch the big fish, you've got to go deeper. Down deep, the fish are more powerful and more pure."— David Lynch, Catching the Big Fish (2006)
The internet, for Lynch, was not a shallow-water opportunity. It was a place to go deeper and to make things that couldn't exist within the constraints of broadcast television or theatrical release. The same logic he applied to digital video applied to the web: it was faster, lighter, and freed him from gatekeepers.
He also believed that the work should come first and the medium should serve the idea. Inland Empire started as a short online collaboration between Lynch and Laura Dern, but it came out so well that Lynch couldn't bear to release it online, and built a feature-length film out of the idea. The internet didn't replace his other work, but actually fed into those projects too. He was treating the internet the way he treated filmmaking: as something you commit to with your own resources because you believe in it, and then you figure out how to get it out to those who will love it too
Lynch also understood something about monetisation that is still underappreciated: multiple small revenue streams, each aligned with your identity, are more resilient than dependence on a single platform or deal. Lynch had his own line of special organic coffee blends, David Lynch Signature Cup, available for purchase on his website and at Whole Foods, advertised via flyers included with several Lynch-related DVD releases. This is what we now call a brand extension. Lynch was doing it intuitively, because coffee was genuinely who he was. Completely on-brand for a man who spoke constantly and lovingly about drinking a "damn fine cup of coffee" in his own work.
The takeaway for anyone creative
He was a creative person who, when a new channel appeared, asked the right question: what can I do here that I couldn't do anywhere else?
The answer, in 2001, was: shorter things, stranger things, daily things, subscriber-supported things, things that don't need a network to approve them. So he made those things.
This pattern repeats with every new platform and every new technology. The creative people who thrive are rarely the ones who wait to see how the technology settles before committing. They're the ones who get in early, make things that are native to the new environment, and build a direct relationship with their audience before the space fills up.
David Lynch’s internet work is as representative an expression of his style and sensibility as Blue Velvet or Twin Peaks. Showing up every day, being genuinely yourself, and doing it in public was Lynch's strategy in the early 2000s. That’s a strategy that remains relevant now.
"Stay true to yourself. Let your voice ring out, and don't let anybody fiddle with it. Never turn down a good idea, but never take a bad idea." — David Lynch
The five Lynch principles for embracing new technology as a channel for creative expression
Ask what the new medium makes possible, not what it replaces.
Self-fund where you can. Control is worth more than comfort.
Show up consistently. Regularity and honesty build audiences.
Build multiple revenue streams aligned to who you genuinely are.
Let the work feed the work. Online experiments become raw material. Raw material becomes film. Film becomes the platform for the next experiment.
Sources & further reading:
Wikipedia — David Lynch
Variety (2002) — Lynch launches online site
Wikipedia — Rabbits (web series)
Wikipedia — DumbLand
Open Culture — David Lynch made a disturbing web sitcom called Rabbits
Reactor Magazine (2025) — David Lynch's wonderful weather
Nerdist (2025) — You can listen to all of Lynch's weather reports on YouTube
AccuWeather — Remembering Lynch for his weather reports
Royal Meteorological Society — Forecasting couch: Lynch does the weather
MIT Docubase — David Lynch Interview Project
Jared Lyon: David Lynch Phone Booth archives
David Lynch Past News
Welcome to Twin Peaks — One year of the weather report
Nicolas Saada / Substack — David Lynch, internet and us all
Split Tooth Media — Harebrained hereafter: Lynch's Rabbits
Film Obsessive — Dumbfounded: viewing Lynch's Dumbland
Lynch, David (2006) — Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity. Tarcher/Penguin.
David Lynch Theater (YouTube) — @DAVIDLYNCHTHEATER — full weather report archive
Interview Project (YouTube) — @interviewproject — all 121 episodes in HD (2024 re-release)
The construction industry is one of the nation's most important prominent socio-economic drivers. It guides the built environment we work and live in. The built environment has a vast and direct impact on our day-to-day life as it is the context for every single human activity.
Technological developments have reshaped how construction projects are handled. New tools and processes have influenced how we design, construct and operate facilities and infrastructures. Data-driven construction approaches and digitalization in construction projects are popular today. They provide the possibilities of wider collaboration not only among the project stakeholders but also as a tool for direct participation for the end users of the facility.
A bilateral relationship between the people working in the construction industry and the local government's policymakers is crucial to fostering inclusiveness. Creating an inclusive community will aid in promoting unity among the diverse population. It is a key to build a shared vision that hinges on the acceptance of vibrancy and contrast of societies to utilize the strengths of the diverse community.
Digitalization is the new era of empowering people
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the global economy in profound ways. Nevertheless, if we look at the positive impacts of the pandemic, it has transformed the way an industry works for the better in the long run. At first, changing the work mode from going to the offices to online meetings and working from home seemed challenging to adopt not just for the employee but also for employers. Moreover, the transformation extended beyond the offices into the real world, evolving and digitalizing people's daily lives.
Inclusive research, development and innovation (RDI) and Digital Living Labs contribute significantly to these dimensions of digitalization. Inclusive RDI in this framework is the key to enable stakeholder participation as partners in all phases of the RDI processes. Additionally, digital living lab(s) provide easy to use and accessible digital (and/or physical) platform(s). These aid the participation and collaboration through participatory research partnership, support co-creation and appropriation of innovations.
A construction project is collaborative in nature as the tasks and activities are divided into different specializations and many organizations. Today, the construction projects and stakeholders incorporate data-driven approaches, tools and activities for the built facility's design, development, construction, and operation. The centralized data, collaborative network and technology itself and its parallel associates such as artificial intelligence, robotics, and IoT based smart systems, are key target areas of investments in research and development. They support strategic governance and the transition to digital construction methodologies and processes.
Participatory approaches in construction projects
Construction projects and their successful planning and implementation require a wide range of collaboration. Model-based information tools and environments provide direct participation possibilities today.
Such a common platform for information sharing and collaboration is known as Common Data Environment (CDE). CDE is an “agreed source of information for any given project or asset for collecting, managing and disseminating each information container through a managed process” (ISO 19650-1:2019) (Figure 1).
[caption id="attachment_10648" align="alignnone" width="529"] Figure 1: Common Data Environment Concept (ISO 19650-1:2019)[/caption]
Information content and its development during the various stages of the project needs intensive collaboration between the project stakeholders. Inclusion of the indirect participants like the end users of the facilities as well as residents of the area is important. It provides the opportunities for social inclusion where everyone’s voice is heard. Reciprocity, openness of data and the usefulness of the activity for everyone involved is at the digital environment's core.
CDE environments enable participation and collection of the opinions of such user groups. It allows the indirect participants to participate in the development actively. Such environments also provide an accessible and easy to use tool to know and understand the project through different 3D model-based environments. It can as well be used to give a real time update about the impact of the project in the day-to-day life of the residents (Figure 2).
[caption id="attachment_10656" align="alignnone" width="620"] Figure 2. Screenshot of a virtual street model with commenting feature (Jäväjä et al, 2013)[/caption]
The challenge is, however, to enable stakeholders' participation throughout the RDI process as equal partners, and not only as informants for the researchers and developers.
Sustainable well-being in the construction projects
The EU diversifies its focus through sustainable development goals and sustainability in the construction industry is one of the key focuses. While the construction industry alone is responsible for 20% of the global energy consumption and approximately one-third of energy-related CO2 emissions; our built environment utilizes the world’s 40% of energy, 50% of natural resources and contributes to 40% of carbon dioxide emissions (WEF, 2016).
Ecological sustainability is considered as the basis for achieving social and economic sustainability goals.
The transformational change for the policy development for an integrated approach to Agenda 2030 demands the conventional growth to be replaced by policies that prioritizes welfare and wellbeing and puts ecological and social objects at the forefront of policy making. While the environmental impacts of the construction industry are huge, socio-cultural impacts are very minorly focused in such developments.
Building Information Modeling (BIM) provides virtual design
Model based tools, applications and processes commonly known today as Building Information Modeling (BIM) provides the ability for virtual design and construction prior to the construction of the actual infrastructure.
BIM provides
a way to check its constructability aspects prior to the actual construction
possibilities and tools in making informed decisions for creating a better outcome that can minimize waste of resources, optimize energy and help achieve passive design strategies and achieve sustainable solutions based on the set strategies. These include energy efficient building, comfortable spaces and so on.
While these tools have diversified use for the direct construction project participants, these also support inclusion and participation of the indirect stakeholders and consistently works towards developing innovative solutions to achieve smart living, social wellbeing, and sustainable cities.
An ideal scenario for attaining the projected vision is to utilize digital platforms where stakeholders can collaborate on future interventions to deliver better user experiences based on refined data and through the common data environment that has the potential to be developed as a daily life digilab throughout the life cycle of the built environment (Figure 3).
[caption id="attachment_10665" align="alignnone" width="589"] Figure 3: Extended CDE; modified from Adrian Burgess (2016)[/caption]
Introducing the interactive model through the CDE implementation will help include all the stakeholders from the inception of an idea until its lifecycle that provides the potential in creation of a positive wellbeing of all. Such an inception would help in:
active participation and inclusion of all the direct and indirect participants
use digital tools to virtually explore the proposed solutions
easy collection, review, and dissemination of the information for perceived benefits
analyze the potential impact of the proposed development on the everyday life activities and in terms of sustainability aspects.
Conclusion: creating a Common Data Environment (CDE) ecosystem
The main challenge of ensuring all people in a society are included can be solved by creating a CDE ecosystem that promotes and sustains participatory co-research, development and innovation activities. Metropolia University of Applied Sciences is currently co-developing a 'Daily Life Digital Lab (DigiLab)' platform as a part of the inclusive ecosystem concept to support stakeholder engagement and collaboration.
External stakeholders can participate in the different phases of a construction project and contribute to the final product's concept, design, and implementation.
Moreover, DigiLab will make the information exchange between external and internal stakeholders more accessible by bringing both parties on a common platform. Consequently, internal stakeholders will have the opportunity to evaluate the ideas set forth by external stakeholders, which will have a positive impact on the overall project throughout its lifecycle.
Inclusive and participatory approaches amongst the stakeholders through the digital tools and platforms will enable the participation and engagement to co-create the sustainable built-environment that is accepted by the majority, if not by all.
Authors
Sunil Suwal (MSc. Construction and Real Estate Management) works as a Lecturer at Metropolia University of Applied Sciences.
Manika Bajracharya, Sharmaa Devi Muthusami, Vipul Agrawal are Construction and Real Estate Management professionals, and students of ConREM, Metropolia.
References
Adrian Burgess (2016), Demystifying the Common Data Environment (pbctoday.co.uk)
ISO 19650-1:2019, Organization and digitization of information about buildings and civil engineering works, including building information modelling (BIM). Information management using building information modelling. Part 1: Concepts and principles (ISO 19650-1:2018)
Suwal, S., Laukkanen, M., Jäväjä, P., Häkkinen, T., & Kubicki, S. (2019, August). BIM and Energy Efficiency training requirement for the construction industry. In IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science (Vol. 297, No. 1, p. 012037). IOP Publishing.
WEF -World Economic Forum. (2016). Shaping the Future of Construction: A Breakthrough in Mindset and Technology. Cologny, Switzerland: World Economic Forum
Jäväjä, P., Suwal, S., Porkka, J., & Jung, N. (2013, June). Enhancing customer orientation in construction industry by means of new technology. In 7th Nordic Conference on Construction Economics and Organisation 2013 (pp. 215-226).
About the project Sustainable well-being is created together in participatory RDI partnership
The blog post is related with a RDI project called “HYTKE - Creating wellbeing in daily life through inclusive RDI”. HYTKE project aims to build an inclusive RDI culture across the Metropolia organization and networks, improve access and competence to RDI participation for a wider range of stakeholders and embed participation and accessible technology more comprehensively in RDI projects. Inclusive RDI is at the core of Metropolia’s strategy 2030 and focuses to generate positive societal impact by strengthening its role as an enabler of participation, everyday wellbeing and holistically sustainable RDI culture and solutions with a multidisciplinary approach.
Our planet cannot sustain us with our current way of life; climate change has already disrupted its human and natural systems. According to the newest IPCC report, there is still hope, but swift and decisive actions are needed right now, on all levels, from the individual to local, national and global. Acting now, it is possible to cut the greenhouse gas emissions to half compared to 2019 by the end of this decade [1]. Change is seldom easy—harmonising our living with our planet calls for our collective will and skill. Climate action and sustainable lifestyle must trickle down to our everyday lives. We all need to do our bit and this blog post shares Metropolia’s approach to the topic.
Much like the sustainability science approach [2], Metropolia's research, development and innovation (RDI) activities can be characterised as problem-based, transdisciplinary and solution-oriented. They aim to contribute to a fair societal sustainability transition, particularly in the urban Helsinki region contexts. This ambition has led Metropolia to join as a partner in the New European Bauhaus (NEB) initiative [3] that aspires to translate the European Green Deal [4] into a tangible (and positive!) experience for all Europeans to participate in and progress together. The pan-European initiative seeks to facilitate and steer the societal transformation along three inseparable values: sustainability, aesthetics, and inclusion.
[caption id="attachment_10417" align="alignnone" width="1041"] Picture 1: The New European Bauhaus pursues to facilitate and steer the transformation of our societies based on three inseparable values of sustainability, aesthetics, and inclusion[3][/caption]
Conscious action for sustainability transition
The concept of stewardship, often defined as the wise and responsible use of natural resources [4], provokes thoughts and ideas for bringing the triad of NEB values to life. In sustainability science, stewardship refers to the active shaping of trajectories of social-ecological change to support resilience and human wellbeing [5], which, in essence, also depicts the core aim of the NEB initiative.
As the quest for sustainability expands beyond a top-down implementation of technical expertise, stewardship demands caring: personal, value-based involvement and engagement with the social and ecological processes related to the urban landscape in question. In order to succeed, a stewardship action requires knowledge and learning about how to reach desired outcomes – a well-meaning and decisive action, without a proper understanding of the local systems and their dynamics, may lead to unwanted and harmful environmental or societal effects. On the other hand, even the most caring, well-knowledged, and skillful stakeholders cannot achieve lasting solutions without real agency to influence governance processes.[5] Thus, effective stewardship in urban landscapes calls for care, knowledge, and agency combined. [5,7]
[caption id="attachment_10419" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Picture 2: Framework for research on stewardship proposed by Enqvist and colleagues includes three intertwined dimensions of care, knowledge, and agency [5,7,8][/caption]
Fleshing out the NEB values
The three dimensions of stewardship unlock intriguing reflections on the NEB values of sustainability, aesthetics, and inclusion. All three stewardship dimensions have interlinkages with all NEB values and bring practical pointers for the initiative's implementation. For example, the NEB value of aesthetics (but also inclusion and sustainability) can connect inspiringly with the care aspect of stewardship as studies [7,9,10] indicate that the sense of place affects motivations for pro-environmental behaviour.
Layering the two frameworks together as one forms a more in-depth picture of the task at hand; the pathfinding for sustainability transitions. Adding the layer of stewardship dimensions to complement the NEB values draws to attention the capacities needed for effective individual and collective actions pursuing sustainability. At the same time, the NEB values describe the aspired characteristics of both the development process and its outcomes.
At its best, the developed framework can help harness the resources of Metropolia – its multidisciplinary staff, students, and learning environments – to facilitate, on its part, the needed sustainability transitions in collaboration with the network of partners, ranging from citizens to NGOs, companies and city administrations. In the coming years, this working model can nurture collective and active stewardship to shape our city environments into beautiful, inclusive and sustainable places that support wellbeing in the urban dwellers' daily lives.
[caption id="attachment_10423" align="alignnone" width="647"] Picture 3: The combination of NEB values and stewardship dimensions layered together outlines a potential starting point for a NEB stewardship action framework.[/caption]
From paper to action
Binding the mentioned two layers together in practical action calls for a well-thought working model. In the ongoing Hytke project, Metropolia develops a Framework for Participatory RDI Partnership that broadens participation and the role of stakeholders towards active partners throughout the RDI process. The participatory RDI partnership underlines that everyone has valuable expertise to share in the knowledge co-production for sustainable wellbeing.[10] The NEB related local collaborative development actions will provide an excellent opportunity for testing the framework in practice.
Author
Päivi Keränen (MA, PhD candidate) works as a project manager and coordinator of the 'Sustainable urban development' theme at the 'Functional City for People' innovation hub of Metropolia. Designer at heart, she promotes and weaves together practical NEB related initiatives in collaboration with partners from within and outside of Metropolia. In her previous projects, she has had the opportunity to explore the combinations of design and resilience thinking, novel XR technologies, and participatory urban planning processes. Currently, she works as a project specialist in the transdisciplinary Hytke project shaping participatory co-research, development, and innovation activities of Metropolia to boost the sustainable wellbeing in daily lives. She also works with the Circular Green Blocks project applying service design methods in co-developing circular economy solutions suitable for the city block level.
References
IPCC (2022). Summary for Policymakers [H.-O. Pörtner, D.C. Roberts, E.S. Poloczanska, K. Mintenbeck, M. Tignor, A. Alegría, M. Craig, S. Langsdorf, S. Löschke, V. Möller, A. Okem (eds.)]. In: Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [H.-O. Pörtner, D.C. Roberts, M. Tignor, E.S. Poloczanska, K. Mintenbeck, A. Alegría, M. Craig, S. Langsdorf, S. Löschke, V. Möller, A. Okem, B. Rama (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press.
Soini, K. (2017). Kestävyystiede–kestävyystutkimuksen uusi paradigma?. Tieteessä tapahtuu, 35(1).
European Commission (2021). New European Bauhaus: new actions and funding to link sustainability to style and inclusion. Retrieved April 21, 2022
European Commission (2019). A European Green Deal: Striving to be the first climate-neutral continent. Retrieved April 24, 2022
West, S., Haider, L. J., Masterson, V., Enqvist, J. P., Svedin, U., & Tengö, M. (2018). Stewardship, care and relational values. Current opinion in environmental sustainability, 35, 30-38.
Andersson, E., Enqvist, J., & Tengö, M. (2017). Stewardship in urban landscapes. Published in C. Bieling and T. Plieninger, (eds). The Science and Practice of Landscape Stewardship. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.
Enqvist, J. (2017). Stewardship in an urban world: Civic engagement and human–nature relations in the Anthropocene (Doctoral dissertation, Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University).
Enqvist, J. P., West, S., Masterson, V. A., Haider, L. J., Svedin, U., & Tengö, M. (2018). Stewardship as a boundary object for sustainability research: Linking care, knowledge and agency. Landscape and Urban Planning, 179, 17-37.
Larson, S., De Freitas, D. M., & Hicks, C. C. (2013). Sense of place as a determinant of people's attitudes towards the environment: Implications for natural resources management and planning in the Great Barrier Reef, Australia. Journal of environmental management, 117, 226-234.
Halpenny, E. A. (2010). Pro-environmental behaviours and park visitors: The effect of place attachment. Journal of environmental psychology, 30(4), 409-421.
Sipari, S., Helenius, S., Vänskä, N. & Salonen, A. O. (2022) Osallistuvalla TKI-kumppanuudella kohti kestävää hyvinvointia?
We have ended up into a transport culture nobody wants. Nobody wants to spend time in traffic jams. There is also little desire to turn cities into parking lots. People want to make cities more livable. This means making them less vehicle-centric. Fewer cars are better for me, the society and the planet.
Mobility revolution starts from changing values. In welfare societies people take surviving for granted. Nothing material is intrinsically valuable for them because they have used to have food, shelter, education opportunities and health care. Thus people are increasingly looking for deeper meaning in their lives rather than aiming at owning more goods. They are moving from ownership to usership.
The change from ownership to usership – in the context of mobility – is demonstrated by the fact that in Stockholm, Sweden only one in ten 18-year-olds gets a driving license. In the USA nearly one in five young adults do not have a driver’s license. In Germany multi-modality increases and the ownership of private cars declines. This trend is also identified in Helsinki, Finland.
Vehicles are more often replaced by trouble-free access and good availability of mobility.
In practical terms multi-modality means that there is seamless multi-modal transport system which can reduce car-dependency and its adverse consequences by supporting a shift from private cars to car-sharing and collective transport. Collective transport can be run by government or private companies.
Mobility revolution is already underway. People already prefer walking because it helps taking care of health. This trend will be supported by the fact that autonomous vehicles – supposed to be launched in 2018-2022 – are sensitive. They do not take risks. This gives more power to pedestrians and cyclists.
In future, railway transport will still take care of the most significant form of mobility for large masses in urban contexts. Bus services will adapt much more flexibly to citizens’ actual needs. Shared, self-driving vehicles and city bikes fulfill the more individual needs of mobility. It is notable that carsharing is projected to exceed 23 million members globally by 2024.
Many people have already recognised that a bicycle is one of the most efficient urban transportation ever invented: versatile, agile, fast, and clean. City bikes as part of the multi-modal transport service have been tested with promising results in several cities.
The next step is that self-driving buses will be added to the system. This will be tested in Finland soon. Autonomous vehicles without drivers do not inspire full confidence.
Even if 90 percent accidents are due to human errors would you allow a self-driving car to take your child to school?
In order to increase passengers´ sense of security the driver can be replaced for example by a pop-up shopkeeper selling products of the local bakery. By such integration of additional services, the concept of multimodal mobility could be enlarged.
Local versions of Mobility as a Service (MaaS) have been piloted in Helsinki, Paris, Eindhoven, Gothenburg, Montpellier, Vienna, Hanover, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Denver, Singapore, and Barcelona. MaaS integrates public transportation to other mobility services that also include private-sector operators. Journey planning mobile applications help us identify and compare different modal options for trips.
Mobility revolution can be strongly supported by governmental policies. A governmental policy is an effective way to enhance comprehensive social change. For example, the governmental decision-making related to smoking has been effective in Finland since the 1970s. If smoking decreases in the current rate, it will be a rare habit in the 2040s, and in 2040 Finland will practically be a smoke-free country.
Thus smooth co-operation between mobility management players, public and private transportation providers, and local authorities responsible for transportation is a core thing for developing a seamless multi-modal transport system. A deep shift towards multi-modal mobility services in society is possible when people recognise that their own, personal benefits can be combined with the altruistic ecological and social benefits.
Photo: Anders Jildén, unsplash.com
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