Lasting one year and on a full dedication basis, the Specialization in Architecture, Urbanism and Civil Engineering (AU/EC 2020-21) from the Faculty of Civil Engineering, Architecture and Urbanism (FEC) in which students will develop an urban project for the International HUB for Sustainable Development (HIDS). In the subject Projects in computing systems, at the Institute of Computing, students will develop a computational system to enable the operation of a sustainability assessment platform for HIDS. At the Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering (FEEC), a working group (GT) was created dedicated to thinking about projects and solutions within the living laboratories approach for the Hub. These are some of the initiatives underway at Unicamp that show the community's engagement with the project planning. “HIDS is a complex project that involves important institutions in addition to Unicamp, but it has always been our objective for the University to actively participate in its construction and these initiatives are an important form of engagement”, said Marco Aurélio Pinheiro Lima, HIDS coordinator.
In March of this year, a technical cooperation agreement was signed between the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the City of Campinas and Unicamp. Under the terms of this agreement, the Bank will invest the total amount of US$ 1 million, non-refundable, to prepare a Master plan innovative and bold, integrating public and private initiatives for the HIDS region. The initiatives underway at Unicamp will generate important subsidies for the development of this master plan.
Physical-spatial project – The 15 specialization students - with backgrounds in Architecture and Urbanism, Ecology, Computing, Civil Engineering and Geography - must put into practice scientific research linked to the urban environment within a socio-environmental perspective. The specialization was designed by a group of FEC professors. In an unprecedented model at Unicamp, the teaching staff must include, in addition to Unicamp professors, doctoral students from FEC, professors from the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism at PUC-Campinas and professionals from Campinas City Hall. “We had 75 candidates, from 14 different states, from eight different courses, and we are sure that the 15 selected will contribute greatly to the development of proposals for HIDS”, said FEC professor, Gabriela Celani. HIDS is a bold project, with many actors involved, which presents us with an immense challenge. This course will help build something concrete for HIDS and leave a legacy so that the project can continue”, said the dean of Unicamp, Marcelo Knobel.
The Unicamp Master Plan and the Campinas City Master Plan will serve as input for HIDS planning. “We hope that this course will be an environment for exchanges and proposals that result in a more innovative, sustainable and inclusive urban environment, words that summarize the objectives of the Master Plan for the city of Campinas”, said Maria Conceição Pires, architect at Campinas City Hall , who will be one of the specialization teachers.
How to assess sustainability - The HIDS proposal is to build a structure that combines and articulates actions, through partnerships and cooperation between institutions to generate concrete contributions to the sustainable development. But how do you know if the projects, activities and initiatives planned and those that will be consolidated in the HIDS are really in line with what the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) recommend?
With this in mind, a working group was created entirely dedicated to developing a sustainability assessment methodology for HIDS. Interdisciplinary, the team brings together professionals from different areas at Unicamp and the institutions that make up the HIDS Advisory Board, including Embrapa, Sanasa, CPQD, Instituto Eldorado, Facamp, PUC-Campinas, TRB Pharma, CPFL and Cargill. “Sustainability is a pillar of HIDS. Hence the need to establish a strategy to assess the sustainability of all HIDS actions on a permanent basis”, explains Marcelo Cunha, professor at the Unicamp Institute of Economics and coordinator of this working group. “Our idea is to articulate methodologies that already exist, being able to apply them to projects of different natures”, stated Cunha. Among these methodologies is, for example, the UI GreenMetric ranking system, which establishes specific sustainability indicators to evaluate and guide future decisions at universities, in which Unicamp and PUC already participate. Another example is the life cycle analysis focused on buildings that could guide all new HIDS constructions and also corporate assessment methodologies, which aim to evaluate and generate sustainability indexes for companies, showing how much they are engaged in a model of sustainable development.
The expected result of this work should be an open access platform from which sustainability indices will be generated in social, economic and environmental aspects. To achieve this, the working group will count on the support of the Unicamp Computing Institute. In the IC subject “Projects in computing systems”, students will develop a computational platform to systematize and automate data collection and generation of sustainability assessment indicators. “Sustainability is a subject that doesn’t appear much in the computing curriculum. This subject is an opportunity for students to reflect on how information technologies can contribute to sustainable development”, said professor Juliana Freitag Borin, responsible for the subject at IC.
Throughout the course, students will learn about different sustainability assessment methodologies. A partnership with CI&T, a daughter company of Unicamp that develops solutions for digital transformation and serves clients such as Coca Cola, Itaú, Motorola, Vivo and Johnson & Johnson, will bring specialists from the company to help students learn about the development stages of a product. “I believe that this experience can add a lot to the training of these students. Due to market demands, companies are increasingly committed to generating good sustainability indicators, so a computer professional who already has this knowledge will have a difference in the job market”, said Juliana.
Internal Committee for HIDS – Seeking to increase the participation of the Unicamp community in HIDS planning, an Internal Committee for HIDS was created (internal ordinance 04/2020). Its objective is to prospect and propose content of interest to Unicamp in HIDS). The Committee is made up of the directors of the Faculties – FCA, FCF, FCM, FE, FEA, FEAGRI, FEC, FEEC, FEF, FEM, FENF, FEQ, FOP and FT –, of the Teaching and Research Institutes -IA, IB, IC, IE, IEL, IFCH, IFGW, IG, IMECC and IG – and the Technical Colleges (COTIL and COTUCA), with their associated directors, acting as substitutes. “This committee will be fundamental in ensuring that content and topics of interest to Unicamp are present in the construction of living laboratories in this territory. Furthermore, it is an important instrument to guarantee the continuity of the project, especially in moments of political transition at the University”, said the director of DEPI, Marco Aurelio Pinheiro Lima. When exploring topics with the directors of Unicamp units, several themes emerged: environmental and sociocultural heritage, urban biodiversity and microclimate monitoring; sustainable urban planning, urban mobility, tactical urbanism, trails and cycle paths, human rights, well-being, education 4.0, energy, water, food cycle, zero waste, circular economy, measurements and data science.
Living laboratories can be understood as spaces for the creation of learning communities that include academics from different disciplines, the private sector, public authorities and users of that space who are jointly involved in producing locally applied knowledge to enable the transition to more advanced technologies and practices. sustainable. HIDS is being envisioned as a model district for sustainable and smart urban development in the form of a living laboratory. “We have already started building projects within this approach together with stakeholders of HIDS (Founding Advisory Board), but it is essential to define which of them meet Unicamp’s demands”, stated Lima.
About the project - HIDS recovers part of the premises in force in the creation of the science and technology hub in Campinas, but goes beyond the objective of leveraging the region's vocation for science and technology. Its purpose is to create a model district of sustainable and smart urban development in the form of a living laboratory. Its mission is to contribute to the process of sustainable development, combining national and international efforts to produce knowledge, innovative technologies and education for future generations, mitigating and overcoming the social, economic and environmental weaknesses of contemporary society.. The Hub's planning area involves the campuses of Unicamp (including Fazenda Argentina, with 1,4 million m2, adjacent to the University campus, in the District of Barão Geraldo), PUC-Campinas and Facamp, and also the entire territory of Ciatec II – High Technology Hub with 8,8 million square meters, totaling 11,3 million m2.
Founding Advisory Board – The creation of HIDS requires planning based on a participatory approach. Seeking to meet this premise, the HIDS Founding Advisory Council was created, a consultative body to which all decisions on HIDS will be submitted for discussion and knowledge, with the aim of contributing to the definition of activities that can integrate HIDS and guide its planning. and the construction of its governance.
The Council brings together 14 institutions: the Municipality of Campinas, the Government of the State of São Paulo, Unicamp, PUC-Campinas, Facamp, CNPEM, Embrapa, CPQD, TRB Pharma, Cargill, Cariba Empreendimentos e Participações and the ELDORADO Institute, all present in the planning area and also CPFL and Sanasa.
