Living Lab

LIVING LAB Summit Tuesday 2 March 2010

admin — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 17:24:01 +0000

The invitation-only LIVING LAB Summit will be held in Brussels on Tuesday 2 March.

Europe’s top research institutes and companies have together worked on the creation of a European research infrastructure that will study human interaction and the adoption of sustainable, smart and healthy innovations around the home: LIVING LAB.
There are many challenges that households have to respond innovatively and sustainably: an ageing society, the predicted energy and water shortages, climate change issues, and growing constraints on (auto) mobility. LIVING LAB will help industry and academia to work together to develop and test successful products and services for sustainable households by gaining a better understanding of the behaviour of people living in these households and interacting with these products. Prototypes can be installed in LIVING LAB homes throughout Europe and accessed by large numbers of temporary residents who will generate insights into living behaviour using these products.

In 2008, the LIVING LAB project consortium set up a design study regarding the creation of a European network of research & innovation centres. This project is supported by the European Seventh Framework Programme. In January 2010, we are now developing the first nodes of this network in the Netherlands and Switzerland. Other sites are being considered in Belgium, Germany, Spain, Singapore and Hong Kong.

On March 2nd, the LIVING LAB consortium would like to discuss next steps on how to contribute to European industry innovation success. This agenda-setting event will bring up-to-date on the LIVING LAB project, providing exclusive information about the labs that are now under development. We would like to generate ideas for potential LIVING LAB projects with experts from industry and research institutions. We will also provide the opportunity to meet business development and research partners.

Preliminary programme:
- European LIVING LAB project developments
- The Swiss Sustainability Lab (ETH Zurich)
- Consumer research at Procter & Gamble.
- Workshops on potential LIVING LAB research projects.

If you are interested in joining the LIVING LAB summit, please send a message before Monday February 15 to Elly Doek at projectoffice@livinglabproject.org indicating your interest. Because of the limited number of available places during the event, the organisation keeps the right of the final selection of the participants. Details of the final programme will be sent to selected participants on confirmation.

We are looking forward to meeting you in Brussels!

EcoDesign 2009 conference Sapporo Japan

admin — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 17:03:05 +0000

On 7, 8, and 9 December 2009 the 10^th anniversary edition of the International Symposium on Environmentally Conscious Design and Manufacturing was held in Sapporo, Japan. For this memorable version of the conference the special topics of social innovation and green building/city were introduced, closely fitting the Living Lab objectives.
Two Living Lab papers were presented in the Design for Sustainable Behaviour session. Both papers were based on the Living Lab pilot study on bathing. One paper described the outcomes of the pilot study, presented by TU Delft Living Lab member Lenneke Kuijer. The second paper presented a follow-up project by a TU Delft graduation student, exploring bathing in different cultures.
The presentations were successful and well received by the audience of approximately 30 researchers and practitioners from all over the world. Both papers can be found through the publication part of this website.

First European Conference on Energy Efficiency and Behaviour Maastricht

admin — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 16:56:42 +0000

On 18 and 19 October 2009 the First European Conference on Energy Efficiency and Behaviour was held in the Dutch city of Maastricht. The conference, organized by SenterNovem focused on understanding the behaviour decision making of individuals in the contribution of reducing carbon dioxide emissions’. Because this topic is closely related to the goals of Living Lab, a member of the team (Lenneke Kuijer, Delft University of Technology) presented a paper in the Technology and Behaviour session. The presentation was successful and well received resulting in a number of new contacts.
Overall the conference was experienced as very useful. Especially the presentations of, and contact with some well known scholars from the field like Hal Wilhite, Charles Vlek, Paul Stern, Elizabeth Shove, Cees Midden, Eva Heiskanen, Evert Hasselaar and many others provided valuable insights. An overview of the confereces’ program and some of its presentations can be found on the conference website through www.conference-energy-behaviour.nl.

Open Innovation Session Zurich

admin — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 13:51:49 +0000

The Open Innovation Session in Zurich was executed on 7 October 2009. The location for the session was the Value Lab at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. Eight participants from different disciplines as well as from industry and academia took part in the Open Innovation Session. The participants had the task to generate new ideas in group work during the creative session concerning three central topics about energy awareness and efficiency.

Results of the creative workshop

An important aspect to increase user acceptance and energy awareness is that energy consumption must be a tangible product. To promote energy as a tangible product it should be established by TV, famous people (from music, politics etc.), education (school) or as a brand. The marketing and energy coaching through technology and social contacts adjusted to motive types is important as well in the context of energy saving. A lifestyle which motivates people to save energy should be created. Also a modular visualisation of energy related to the socio-cultural types (player, calculator, green, lazy, demographics etc.) of users is needed. This means users can choose their preferred type of visualisation (playful, very simple, number oriented, colours etc.).

ECTP conference Brussels

admin — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 14:35:19 +0000

Living Lab presented their plans at the ECTP conference in Brussels 24-25 November 2009. The theme of the conference was Innovation in Construction: Taking the lead in greening the future. Focus of the Living Lab presentation was to present the Living Lab infrastructure and how this can link new technologies to the end user. The feedback of the audience was generally positive and the attendance to the conference led to some interesting new contacts for the next phase of Living Lab.

Second Open Innovation Session

admin — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 08:05:49 +0000

Four Open Innovation Sessions around the topic of Smart Metering will be held in Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Spain.
Companies and researchers interested in this topic can contact the project office for more information.

Research pilot & open innovation session

admin — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 11:34:18 +0000

On Friday the 28th of November 2008 the first open innovation session as conclusion of the first research pilot with the topic ‘experiments in bathing practices’ took place at the TU Delft/the Netherlands.
We would like to thank everyone who participated in this very successful and pleasant workshop. It was amazing how many great and valuable ideas were generated. We will keep all involved parties informed about the outcomes and the progress of the research pilot.

Conceptualisation workshop Brussels

admin — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 12:01:05 +0000

Thanks to all of you for your valuable input and hard work during the conceptualization workshop (16-17.09.2008) in Brussels. Also thanks to the invited stakeholders that especially came to provide us with feedback. We highly appreciated your comments and suggestions; they form an important step towards the further elaboration of the concepts.

For inspirations, I would like to recommend you some blogs of other living lab projects:

http://blog.openlivinglabs.eu/

http://www.ami-communities.eu/drupal/node/28

http://www.livinglabs-europe.com/blog/