Smart & Connected Cities
- oswaldjenewein
- Dec 14, 2023
- 2 min read
Updated: Jul 20
The Smart and Connected Cities project envisions a new relationship between communities, environmental systems, and digital technologies. In the Texas Coastal Bend, where flood events, air pollution, and water quality challenges impact daily life, the project establishes a civic interface that transforms environmental data into spatial awareness and informed action.
Funded through a $2.4 million NSF grant (Award Number 2231557) and preceded by a successful planning grant (Award Number 2125234), the project brings together architects, engineers, computer scientists, and policy experts to co-create a community dashboard that visualizes real-time data on flood risk, air quality, and water conditions across eight cities. This dashboard is not simply a technical tool but an instrument of communication, decision-making, and adaptation that invites public engagement and institutional response.
Architecture shapes this interdisciplinary effort through four interrelated contributions, serving as a mediator that helps align and communicate the various dimensions of the project within a cohesive spatial and conceptual framework. It begins with the orchestration of community workshops that surface lived experiences and guide the alignment of data collection with local realities. These engagements are central to the process, grounding technological systems in everyday knowledge. In parallel, architecture supports the formation and stewardship of long-term partnerships with community-based organizations and municipal leaders, building trust and ensuring continuity. Visual communication plays a key role through the development of dashboard interfaces that translate complex environmental data into formats that are both legible and actionable. Finally, architectural thinking synthesizes the outcomes into spatial strategies and policy recommendations, linking real-time data to forward-looking interventions at both the urban and building scale. In this role, architecture provides the connective tissue between disciplines, making complexity visible and actionable through design.
By working across disciplines and scales, the project supports integrative ecologies that treat built and natural systems as interconnected. It bridges human and artificial intelligence by combining community insight with sensor networks and machine learning. It reinforces participatory urbanism by embedding co-creation at every stage of the process. Through these efforts, the project builds the foundation for a regionally adaptive smart city framework that responds to climate challenges while centering community agency and environmental care.
Funding
National Science Foundation
Planning Grant: Award Number 2125234 ($150,000)
Full Grant: Award Number 2231557 ($2.4 million)
Team
Dr. Michelle Hummel, Civil Engineering (PI)
Dr. Oswald Jenewein, Architecture (Co-PI)
Dr. Karabi Bezboruah, Public Affairs and Planning (Co-PI)
Dr. Yonghe Liu, Computer Science and Engineering (Co-PI)