Smart(ening up the modern) home: Redesigning power dynamics through domestic space digitalization
Lead Research Organisation:
CARDIFF UNIVERSITY
Department Name: Welsh School of Architecture (ARCHI)
Abstract
The project Smart(ening up the modern) home: Redesigning power dynamics through domestic space digitalization (SMARTUP) explores how digitalization impacts domestic space. It examines what happens to home when it becomes smart/er, explores what "smartness" of and at home means, and addresses the consequences of home smartening. Home has long been defined by dichotomies such as outside and inside, public and private, work and care, masculine and feminine, human and non-human. The digital transformation of home reworks these dichotomies as well as their corollary power dynamics, especially since smartening up has intensified in the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. SMARTUP investigates how home has been transformed by digitalization, and with what consequences in relation to 1) the understanding of (smart) home, 2) the ways (smart) home as a dwelling has become to be imagined, planned and designed, and 3) its everyday forms as practised and experienced. These three foci are to be researched within an interdisciplinary trans-European consortium bringing together insights from across social sciences, design studies and (post)humanities. SMARTUP will produce a unique, interdisciplinary approach to the transformations brought about by the proliferation of digital technologies in contemporary homes, which promises to extensively add to the theory building on, and scholarly reconceptualization of "home". In collaboration with practitioners (of smart home design & production), and civic and cultural institutions, SMARTUP will identify the multiple impacts of digital transformation on home and its wider societal and cultural implications, thus closing a gap in knowledge about the consequences of the process of smartening-up of home pertaining to different academic disciplines. Overall, the project will identify societal and conceptual challenges posed by intensification of smartening up of home as well as offer practical and theoretical ways to solve them.
Organisations
- CARDIFF UNIVERSITY (Lead Research Organisation)
- Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (Collaboration)
- Cardiff University (Collaboration)
- Aalto University (Collaboration)
- RWTH Aachen University (Collaboration)
- University of Lodz (Collaboration)
- University of Göttingen (Collaboration)
- National Taipei University (Collaboration)
- Centre for the Study of Popular Culture (Project Partner)
- Washington State University (Project Partner)
- Carleton University (Project Partner)
- Art Museum (Lodz) (Project Partner)
Publications
Bleil De Souza C
(2024)
OntoAgency: An agency-based ontology for tracing control, ownership and decision-making in smart buildings
in Building and Environment
| Description | The aims of our work package in this award were to interrogate the implications of the processes of emergence of both the smart home and the concept of smartness for contemporary design and planning as well as to determine what power relations are involved in the production of smart housing solutions and how they shape the processes of their emergence. To answer these aims we undertook extensive literature reviews in different academic fields as well as the grey literature used by building designers and engineers to make decisions related to smart buildings and are currently organising interviews and focus groups with professionals involved in design and decision-making related to smart homes. Key findings included: • Developing a theoretical framework to address knowledge gaps in designing and operating smart homes based on lived praxis seeing smart homes as a space of contradictions such as: technological efficiency vs. practical constraints, universal accessibility vs. digital divide, efficiency vs. privacy concerns, empowerment vs. surveillance and control. These contradictions are seen as opportunities for transformation, challenging existing systems and envisioning alternative ways of living. • Applying the theoretical framework to analyse and critically reflect upon interviews with practitioners and stakeholders involved in smart home design and operation to understand lived experience and structural limitations of the smart home action. • Developing an agency-based design ontology (OntoAgency) to systematically trace the relationships between stakeholders who own, control, and decide upon the benefits and experiences provided by smart building services. The ontology is fully compatible with existing ontologies and bridges viewpoints from the Social Sciences and engineering. • Applying the ontology in two real cases: a social housing retrofit in Wales (UK) and a privately managed energy district in Germany. The former comprising the assessment of how decisions related to building operation services and the levels of smartness associated to them happen throughout the whole project delivery. The latter comprises assessing effects of optimizing energy delivery and energy systems operation in a district scale, considering the different degrees of agency available to homeowners versus their implications to electricity grid security. |
| Exploitation Route | The outputs of this project have been widely disseminated in the engineering, building design and building simulation communities - bridging gaps between the social sciences and more technical professions involved in building design and operation. |
| Sectors | Construction Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software) Energy Government Democracy and Justice Other |
| URL | https://smartup-chanse.eu/ |
| Description | Our research findings were extensively disseminated among the engineering community involved in building design and operation as well as digitalization and energy transition. This includes academics, practitioners and policy makers in the aforementioned areas. Dissemination channels comprised: the EU BUILDUP portal, IEA Annex 91, Building simulation conferences, seminars, symposium and guest talks to academic staff and students in different Universities in the EU. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2024 |
| Sector | Construction,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Energy,Government, Democracy and Justice |
| Impact Types | Societal Policy & public services |
| Title | OntoAgency |
| Description | OntoAgency is a relational agency-based ontology to understand power relationships. It can be used to trace chains of decision-making, control, ownership and data sharing in design, operation, and policymaking. The ontology if fully compatible with existing BIM, SRI, BRICK and SAREF ontologies and can be retrieved in OWL or RDF formats to be used with the aforementioned ontologies or as stand-alone inside Protégé. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Dataset to be widely disseminated to the building industry and further developed together with partners form the IEA Annex 91 - Open BIM for Energy Efficient Buildings |
| URL | https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.10402091 |
| Title | OntoAgency |
| Description | OntoAgency is a relational agency-based ontology to understand power relationships. It can be used to trace chains of decision-making, control, ownership and data sharing in design, operation, and policymaking. The ontology if fully compatible with existing BIM, SRI, BRICK and SAREF ontologies and can be retrieved in OWL or RDF formats to be used with the aforementioned ontologies or as stand-alone inside Protégé. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Dataset to be widely disseminated to the building industry and further developed together with partners form the IEA Annex 91 - Open BIM for Energy Efficient Buildings |
| URL | https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.10402092 |
| Title | OntoAgency 2.0 |
| Description | OntoAgency is a relational agency-based ontology to understand power relationships. It can be used to trace chains of decision-making, control, ownership and data sharing in design, operation, and policymaking. The ontology if fully compatible with existing BIM, SRI, BRICK and SAREF ontologies and can be retrieved in OWL or RDF formats to be used with the aforementioned ontologies or as stand-alone inside Protégé. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| URL | https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.10711322 |
| Description | Building-as-a-Service: How does it look like in practice? |
| Organisation | RWTH Aachen University |
| Country | Germany |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We are developing a joint publication with RTWH Aachen on applying a simplified version of OntoAgency to a district heating in Germany to explore the impact on and effects of homeowners' agency when private companies managing energy supply undertake technical decisions towards improving system's efficiency and optimization. Cardiff is doing the modelling and analysis of ownership, controls and data sharing of homeowners in the district. |
| Collaborator Contribution | RTWH Aachen is optimizing energy delivery and energy systems operation in a district scale. |
| Impact | Findings will illustrate the importance of extending current energy and BIM models to include stakeholders' agency when delivering energy-as-a-service and empower engineers to propose compromises between energy optimization, grid security and benefits to building owners, promoting best practice whilst highlighting aspects to be regulated to ensure a just and sustainable energy transition for all. |
| Start Year | 2024 |
| Description | Expanding the scope of Smart UP beyond Europe |
| Organisation | National Taipei University |
| Country | Taiwan, Province of China |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We will work together to explore how smart homes are implemented outside Europe - knowledge transfer form our project to theirs 'New Taipei city' |
| Collaborator Contribution | Collaboration with "Graduate Institute of Urban Planning, National Taipei University" - helped with interviews on Smart Homes project in Taipei, collaboration for future publication, research student to help with data collection. |
| Impact | Interview data Further interviews + data collection future joint paper |
| Start Year | 2023 |
| Description | How smart does energy retrofit needs to be? |
| Organisation | Cardiff University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We are examining the limits of smartization in social housing via a case study in Wales unpacking a highly dynamic decision-making process in order to improve the understanding of how the targets for smartness and decarbonisation are negotiated between each other in real-life design practice and, in particular, how much smartness is actually needed to deploy successful energy retrofits. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Our partners provide the case study and expertise in modelling, assessing, implementing and monitoring social housing that underwent energy transition. |
| Impact | By mapping the decision making in building design, development and operation, the work challenges the idea that successful energy transition depends on high levels of smartness, whilst highlighting barriers and opportunities to achieve good levels of performance grounded in specific context. |
| Start Year | 2023 |
| Description | Smart UP research team |
| Organisation | Aalto University |
| Country | Finland |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | This is where the Project Leader is based |
| Collaborator Contribution | Project leading Smart UP |
| Impact | Bleil de Souza, C., Nyklova, B., Golanska, D., Gruhlich, J., Ehrenberg, N., Hamarowski, B., Frydrysiak, S., Badyina, A., SmartUp project: Preliminary lessons & provocations for design, operation and policymaking of smart homes. EU BUILD UP The European Portal for energy efficiency and renewable energy in buildings. Technical Article, in: https://build-up.ec.europa.eu/en/resources-and-tools/articles/smartup-project-preliminary-lessons-and-provocations-design-operation Topic of the month: Smart homes and smart buildings changing the way we live, December 2023. |
| Start Year | 2023 |
| Description | Smart UP research team |
| Organisation | Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic |
| Country | Czech Republic |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | This is where the Project Leader is based |
| Collaborator Contribution | Project leading Smart UP |
| Impact | Bleil de Souza, C., Nyklova, B., Golanska, D., Gruhlich, J., Ehrenberg, N., Hamarowski, B., Frydrysiak, S., Badyina, A., SmartUp project: Preliminary lessons & provocations for design, operation and policymaking of smart homes. EU BUILD UP The European Portal for energy efficiency and renewable energy in buildings. Technical Article, in: https://build-up.ec.europa.eu/en/resources-and-tools/articles/smartup-project-preliminary-lessons-and-provocations-design-operation Topic of the month: Smart homes and smart buildings changing the way we live, December 2023. |
| Start Year | 2023 |
| Description | Smart UP research team |
| Organisation | University of Göttingen |
| Country | Germany |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | This is where the Project Leader is based |
| Collaborator Contribution | Project leading Smart UP |
| Impact | Bleil de Souza, C., Nyklova, B., Golanska, D., Gruhlich, J., Ehrenberg, N., Hamarowski, B., Frydrysiak, S., Badyina, A., SmartUp project: Preliminary lessons & provocations for design, operation and policymaking of smart homes. EU BUILD UP The European Portal for energy efficiency and renewable energy in buildings. Technical Article, in: https://build-up.ec.europa.eu/en/resources-and-tools/articles/smartup-project-preliminary-lessons-and-provocations-design-operation Topic of the month: Smart homes and smart buildings changing the way we live, December 2023. |
| Start Year | 2023 |
| Description | Smart UP research team |
| Organisation | University of Lodz |
| Country | Poland |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | This is where the Project Leader is based |
| Collaborator Contribution | Project leading Smart UP |
| Impact | Bleil de Souza, C., Nyklova, B., Golanska, D., Gruhlich, J., Ehrenberg, N., Hamarowski, B., Frydrysiak, S., Badyina, A., SmartUp project: Preliminary lessons & provocations for design, operation and policymaking of smart homes. EU BUILD UP The European Portal for energy efficiency and renewable energy in buildings. Technical Article, in: https://build-up.ec.europa.eu/en/resources-and-tools/articles/smartup-project-preliminary-lessons-and-provocations-design-operation Topic of the month: Smart homes and smart buildings changing the way we live, December 2023. |
| Start Year | 2023 |
| Description | Knowledge representation for comparing use cases in SRI implementation |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Presentation delivered as part of the EU BUILD UP webinar: Smart Energy Transition: From Ideal to Reality. 25th June 2024, together with Golubchikov, O., Badyina, A., Fokaides, P., Patterson, J., Perisouglou, E. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Jyg4_kNqnY |
| Description | Leakage: Inaugural Conference stsing 2024 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | A presentation on Naked House / Naked people - When buildings no longer protect us and our privacy is stored in The Clouds. Panel on The Leaking Home: Exploring the Digital Transformation of Domestic Spaces. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Modelling decision-making in Smart energy transition: Assessing the threats of building-as-a-service |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Guest lecture at the Department of Building and Environmental Technology (LTH), University of Lund, Sweden, December 2024 to disseminate SmartUP results among engineers. Presentation followed by a discussion sparked forming new research collaborations. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | People-Centric Energy Transition: Needs, ways of life, ownership and agency |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Disseminating SMART Up activities together with IEA Annex 79 activities. Paris-Saclay, May 2024 to academic staff and postgraduate students. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Smart Energy Transition Integrated with BIM |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Presentation with pitch for collaboration - IEA Annex 91 Open BIM for Energy Efficient Buildings - Consortium meeting in Cardiff August 2024. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | SmartUP Project: Preliminary lessons & provocations for design, operation and policy making of smart homes - Talk by Clarice Bleil de Souza |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Bleil de Souza, C., "SmartUP Project: Preliminary lessons & provocations for design, operation and policy making." EU BUILD UP Ambassadors meeting. October 2023. Brussels, Belgium. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | SmartUp project: Preliminary lessons & provocations for design, operation and policymaking of smart homes. EU BUILD UP Technical Article |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Bleil de Souza, C., Nyklova, B., Golanska, D., Gruhlich, J., Ehrenberg, N., Hamarowski, B., Frydrysiak, S., Badyina, A., SmartUp project: Preliminary lessons & provocations for design, operation and policymaking of smart homes. EU BUILD UP The European Portal for energy efficiency and renewable energy in buildings. Technical Article, in: https://build-up.ec.europa.eu/en/resources-and-tools/articles/smartup-project-preliminary-lessons-and-provocations-design-operation Topic of the month: Smart homes and smart buildings changing the way we live, December 2023. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://build-up.ec.europa.eu/en/resources-and-tools/articles/smartup-project-preliminary-lessons-an... |
| Description | Spatially just transitions - talk by Oleg Goluchikov |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Wales-Taiwan Research Forum, National Taipei University, 24 March 2023. Presentation on "Spatially just transitions" Discussion of the project. Outcome: raising awareness of the project, receiving feedback in a new context, developing project collaboration. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |