Our lives are filled with data and the technology that allows us to interact with it. The digital revolution is fundamentally changing our behaviours, yet our physical environment moves at an altogether slower pace.
Or does it?
Attractive incentives to supply locally generated renewable power have fuelled the volume in demand which has in turn lowered technology prices, making it a much more attractive investment. Domestic roofs in the UK are covered in PV panels and wind turbines continue their march across the landscape and seascape. The pace of change has caught the majority of power utilities off guard. We are reaching a similar point in electric vehicles – UK EV sales in 2015 equalled the total EVs sold in the previous four years. There are many more examples.
The Happold Foundation wants to promote understanding and thinking around potential engineering or technology led change within a wide group of stakeholders, from designers to school children, students to researchers, and those who are simply interested in the environment in which they live.
So the Global Sprint was born.
Global Sprint is a workshop format that runs over four hours using a set of pre-prepared briefing materials to explore a change to our built environment, our buildings and cities in other words. The workshops are available to any group who wishes to participate. Each workshop looks at an environment that is local to the workshop group and seeks to understand how emerging technology may drive change. The aim is to run a series of sprints in different locations around the world on the same topic and to share the perspective this achieves.
BuroHappold Engineering have prepared the first Global Sprint, which covers the following themes and ideas:
Many of our towns and cities have either been shaped by the motorcar, or designed around it. There is a push to reduce private fossil fuelled transport from the centre of our cities but statistics around poor air quality give the lie to how slow progress is. The notion of driverless cars – however futuristic it might seem – is now becoming reality in Singapore and Pittsburgh.
So how far off widespread use of connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs) and how could they change our cities?
The first pilot was held in Bath on the 6th October 2016 and over the next two months more Sprints will be held in Berlin, London, New York, Riyadh and Kuala Lumpur.
If you would like to join in and organise your own Sprint please contact anna.rothnie@burohapold.com