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Innovation from Campuses
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The Campus of the future has to be redefined as a “Hub”, an interactive space, taking into account the social and economic environment. Several initiatives and new experiences, such as The SMU in Asia, a Learning Center in the Glasgow University, or Ravensbourne College in London, demonstrate the efficiency of sustainable approaches, with real successful results, both at the social level, integration, quality of life and work for students.
Thanks to proactivity and an efficient partnership with notably Fondaterra, Bouygues Construction, Chaire “campus durable” and Cofely, the orientation of a sustainable campus is already a realistic project at UVSQ. However, in order to be able to fully transform a Campus in a sustainable place, coupling with efficiency energy, all the stakeholders will haver to cope with financial constraints and priorities.
The new approach, Co’Campus, presented by Severine Chapus, redefines the campus as a “sustainable cluster”, opening to the external environment, flexible, adaptable.
Severine Chapus, Bouygues Construction, explaining the Co'Campus.
The notion of “porosity” for the Campus of the future is a synthetic vision.
The Campus of tomorrow will be:
- Organic, which means alive and connected with its surroundings
- Open
- Hybrid, with multidisciplinary approaches and issues
- Flexible, so as to enable adaptation and new behaviours, and to involve students in the management and research.
The Campus is redefined as a real high quality of living and working spaces. New initiative developed with the Chaire Campus Durable (Aurore Keppler) and Bouygues Construction Ile de France follow the same targets.
The ambitious project of the Chaire Campus Durable functions under several directions:
- International Observatory, a benchmark of Campuses in the World, with indicators.
- The Living Lab project aiming at launching experimentations. It runs as an international observatory for benchmarking (examples below by Mathias Bouckaerts)
- The ICT Pole: ICT will transform the Campuses (i.e., towards e-learning).
The University is now becoming a showcase in terms of sustainable issues. Matthias Bouckaerts explained the concept of exemplarity for the Future Campuses. New trends are already materialized. The expectations in term of efficiency, performances, economic development, are linked with new objectives such as social life, transversal character of the approaches, news services for students (housing, new technological tools, …).
Three successful examples selected by M Bouckaerts are very convincing:
a) The Singapore University, in Asia: a modern building, opened to connectivity, with green natural spaces, services and shops underground with easy access, time limited for transportation (10 minutes maximum by foot for the students to reach the University).
b) Glasgow Caledonian University – Learning Centre: high-tech equipment, flexible, modular furniture, concept of “learning café”; five floors – 10500 m2; enhanced interaction between students, leading to more satisfaction and higher motivation.
c) Ravensbourne College – London: a university which has evolved in a context including the suburbs in the south of London and industrial districts; focused on the development of new partnerships. The University is becoming a hub (new dynamic, interaction with economic and social life) in its new territory.
In France, the association Fondaterra (located at the University of Versailles Saint Quentin) supports the transition of the University from a classic model to a Sustainable Campus. The first part of the programme in 2006 has evaluated the real estate in the Ile de France area, in terms of quality and energy efficiency. The 17 campuses located in the Ile de France region are generally very old. Realistic savings on energy have been estimated, but the costs to effect the transformation are dramatically high facing budget and priorities.
Since 2009, Fondaterra has set up guidelines to help campuses improve their energy efficiency. The“G2E-Campus” (Google) is a specific tool to help universities towards this transition; a toolbox for all the universities, (T.ecostyle), online self-evaluation system for sustainability (www.evades.com). Many other initiatives have been undertaken by Fondaterra at the UVSQ: the Valteris project “green eco plate”, waste valorisation with the university restaurant CROUS.
Both at the national and local scale, Fondaterra is very proactive. The very mission and a basic rule of the association of Fondaterra is to sensitise-inform the Campus and to provide guidance towards a positive approach for sustainability actions. “It is just the beginning…” – says Marie Gabrielle Mery.
The University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines has signed a partnership with COFELY Services based on energy efficiency improvement. The business model is based on the return on investment (ROI).
The contract duration is 25 years with initial investment and after sales service and maintenance over 20 years.
The stakes are very high. The priority must be given to energy savings orientations capable of financing the costs. Several actions have been proposed by Cofely, from piloting the project and the transformation of the existing equipment to the transformation of the buildings: replacement of gas boilers by condensation boilers, wood pellet boiler, two heating pumps, double stream air (already applied). Further plans for the next years are: photovoltaic panels and one wind turbine. Sometimes, as explained Philippe Creuzot, simple actions (individualised heating) have quick and visible effects.
New building for student housing is going to be developed, as explained by Pascal Gantier: energy-positive and law-carbon buildings. Along with the issue of energy efficiency, the students’ quality of life is omnipresent during this project. Much more than a “passive building” (German standard), this will be a positive energy building.
Pascal Gontier, Pascal Gontier Atelier, explaining the different simulations and scenarios of the new building project (students'individual rooms in Saint Quentin).
Facing all these changes and mutations, the question is How to sensitise the users? – says Sophie Nemoz, specialised in sociology.
The notion of acceptability of the energy transition for the users is totally linked with the result and success of all the projects. Macro-, meso- and micro-scales are different scales to understand the users. This becomes obvious once certain questions are asked, like "How to study the rebound effect / How to evaluate and measure it?".
From technological innovations, social awareness and new training for adaptability, we are facing a new collective challenge. Ambitious projects are needed, such as laboratories for eco-innovation which can include the users, to study the fundamental issue represented by the emergence of new uses which require long term investments.
Reporters : Cécile Tchoubaev and Hélène Luciani (Master in Management of Eco-Innovation)
Participants :
Marie Gabrielle Méry – Fondaterra
Séverine Chapus – Bouygues Construction
Philippe Creuzot – COFELY Services – GDF Suez subsidiary
Sophie Nemoz – Econoving Chaire – sociologist, PhD
Pascal Gontier – Architect - Pascal Gontier Atelier.
Mathias Bouckaerts – Chaire Campus Durable, PhD student
Aurore Keppler – Chaire Campus Durable
