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End-User no longer - Rethinking the design of distributed infrastructures considering users participation through piezoelectric technology
Elena Vanz, Justyna Karakiewicz, Amnon Holland
150 - 159
10.3233/978-1-61499-286-8-150
Ambient Intelligence and Smart Environments
Volume 17: Workshop Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Intelligent Environments
Abstract

Infrastructure is a physical device that delivers a service needed to an end-user (consumer). Thus, it is in its identity to be formed by two distinct layers: the physical structure and the carried service. Today transition to decentralized and distributed infrastructures models focuses on redesigning the way of electricity infrastructures operate considering both a local production of the service from renewable resources and technology, and a more proactive role of the end-user

International Renewable Energy Agency

. Digital information and communication technology development have increasingly impacted the complexity in which electricity infrastructures operate spatially and temporally through scales, going from local to regional, national and international linkages. However, the restriction in perceiving infrastructures as individual physical objects limits the end-user as intermediary

William J. Mitchell

 and neglects the benefit of addressing its active contribution when considering cross-connections between types of infrastructures accordingly to the carried service. Over time infrastructures design has been constrained into a linear model that focuses on optimizing efficiency by increasing capacity in which individual infrastructures types operate. Optimization in distributed infrastructures can be achieved maximizing the way the whole infrastructure performs including the user contribution in defining demand and cross-connections (end-user no longer). Recent technology development in piezoelectricity, has demonstrated that energy can be harvested from the human body and stored in form of electricity. Thus the user can act as well as producer generating electricity through piezoelectric technology used as energy harvesting sensor, and consuming it for its own service(s) such as lighting and communication devices. This model is designed, built and tested in a prototype currently in process to be further explored in a design installation proposed in the City of Melbourne. This work is part of a doctoral research in progress under an ongoing multidisciplinary collaboration involving the fields of architecture, urban design and engineering.

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