CHALLENGE
Help Philips to rethink the next generation of urban infrastructure - streetlight
POTENTIAL
A holistic project including ideation workshop, design prototypes, research paper and website to showcase our imagination of streetlight in the near future.
How might we rethink the next-gen of streetlight?
Street lights made the modern city. They created an atmosphere unique to cities, making streets safer and livelier after dark. But for centuries, they have only served a single function: providing light. The Sensing Light project explores the future of street lights, using digital technologies to envision them as a global data collection and digital services platform for cities.
Designing a real-time urban intelligence platform
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The transformation of street lights from a single-function infrastructure into a digitally enhanced multi-functional one will require the participation of new stakeholders and the creation of new institutional frameworks.In particular, city officials and industry leaders will need to address how privacy and data ownership will affect the development of street lights as a global data platform.
Illuminating the potential of lighting infrastructure
We imagine a next generation of street lights equipped with a variety of digital capabilities, from air quality and thermal sensing to motion detection, digital imaging, and more. Data from these sensors could be combined to deliver insights on a variety of urban topics at hyperlocal resolution, such as how pedestrians behave in public spaces and where hotspots of road vibration are located. Combined with existing sensing technologies, the street light can become a multifunctional device critical to the digital transformations of cities around the world.
Streetlight as urban safety gaurdian
Streetlight as multi-functional urban intelligence
Streetlight as intelligent urban information platform
Monitoring to maximize the value of parking space
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Ubiquitous and embedded in the urban sphere, street lights could become key resources for street-level data collection.For example, the size standardization of parking slots leads to an underutilization of valuable urban space.Using cameras and artificial intelligence we were able to identify parking inefficiencies In Cambridge, where over 95% of on-street parking is located within 30m of a street light.Optimizing curbside usage could make streetside life more vibrant and spacious.
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︎KEY TAKE-AWAY
NEXT STEPS
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︎KEY TAKE-AWAY
- Ideating storyline with stakeholders is key of having right scenarios
- Collaborating with multidiscilinary team
NEXT STEPS
- Create real functional prototype streetlight (now only cv model)
- Get implemented in city Boston
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