ECOTYPE project

Decision-support for regional authorities in managing communication with their citizens

Project manager: Sandrine SELOSSE

Le Dôme géodésique de 110 m²The ECOTYPE project is a particularly original and ambitious experiment. It aims at developing a tool in the form of an educational game, the purpose of which is to help local authorities to communicate with their citizens and make them aware of the issues of town planning and sustainable development. A first in France, this project innovates notably by adopting a fun, interactive and artistic approach.

In an immersive geodesic dome that houses a reconstruction interactive device involving a representation of the Plan Local d’Urbanisme (PLU – land-use plan) of the host town (Valbonne Sophia Antipolis for this initial experiment), the inhabitants and users of the town and the technology park are invited to make town planning choices (investments in community facilities, town planning and urbanization etc.) over the next ten, twenty or fifty years by taking up the many challenges that the rarefaction of energy resources, climate problems (through CO2 emissions) or the increasing population represent.

Introduced by Benoît COLARDELLE from the company Scèn&Act and Frédéric ALEMANY of Le Hublot in 2011 and approved PACA Labs, this project is the fruit of a diversified local partnership with the town of Valbonne, SOLAR GAMES, LTCI Telecom ParisTech, the BIAPI, Polytech Nice among others and supported by PRIDES ICI. Sandrine SELOSSE and Steve LECHEVALIER of the CMA realized computational algorithms representing the core of the software tool specific to the ECOTYPE project, dedicated to analyzing Energy-Climate-Town Planning issues of the area that can be reproduced in any town in France.

The project was finished and became a reality in May 2013 through the operational implementation of the geodesic structure. The first representation took place from the 10th to the 19th May 2013 and welcomed between 80 and 100 visitors a day. Other towns of the PACA region have already shown an interest in installing such a device in their areas and discussions are taking place to organize a potential phase 2 as a follow-up to the project.

 

L’interface du jeu

The game interface

The players have the chance of not creating new constructions on their land, selecting the choices already retained in town planning documents or making their own selections according to the constructions offered. Once the town planning choices are made via a tactile interface, a reconstruction device then allows you to visualize the choices made in the present and the future. A visualization of the area is thus given by 2020 and then 2050 by means of data screens, in the form of projections on the dome itself as well as on the floor. These territorial choices are also transposed to all towns in France, then on a world scale and visible on three different screens.

At the end of the simulation, abstract effects also represent the increase in CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, the depletion of fossil energies and the increasing population for example.

Effets abstraits représentant la consommation de pétrole

Abstract impacts representing oil consumption

Centre de Mathématiques Appliqués

Agence Web Spinat