The MUSIC Project

Register HERE for the MUSIC Final Conference, a co-production with ICLEI and the ARTS consortium!  
Informed Cities Forum 2015 - Which way to the future? Strategies, tools and inspiration for transforming cities? 26-27 March 2015, Rotterdam 
The City of Rotterdam (The Netherlands) will host the 4th Informed Cities Forum, themed "Which way to the future? Strategies, tools and inspiration for transforming cities" on 26 - 27 March 2015. The forum, organised as a co-production of the ARTS and MUSIC project consortia, will bring together a unique mix of dreamers, thinkers and doers from across Europe representing the public sector, research community, and local initiatives. Take a look at the Conference Program HERE.

What is MUSIC -> Mitigation in Urban areas: Solutions for Innovative Cities is an Interreg cooperation project aimed to catalyse and mainstream carbon and energy reduction in the urban context. In five cities, temporally innovation networks were formed to create a strategic perspective on the transition to a low-carbon future and give an impulse for local change. In parallel, a Geospatial Urban Energy Information was set up to support scenario building and decision making. 
The five cities work closely together in a partnership with two research institutions. The first one is the Dutch Research Institution for Transitions (DRIFT), focusing on transitions towards sustainability. The second one is the CRP Hendri Tudor, which focuses on sustainably reinforcement of the economic competitiveness of companies and the fabric of society.  

Guiding you through the Urban Transition Management process as it was explored and implemented by 5 brave cities in the MUSIC project!
Watch it now: Overview of all Visual Memory Aids



What is a visual memory aid?
A Visual Memory Aid is storage place for newborn ideas and concepts. During a good brainstorm or envisioning session, participants see new connections and come up with new ideas. They can see these ideas in front of them. New ideas are very volatile, it's hard to capture them or transfer to people who were not present during the brainstorm session. A week later, the ideas often have faded out of our memory. We recall a vague notion of a good feeling and positive energy but we cannot easily reproduce what we had in mind. The Visual Memory Aids contain everything that can help remember and capture the energy of what happened during the international meetings: sketches, impressions, opinions, quotes and ideals.

The MUSIC project
MUSIC (Mitigation in Urban areas: Solutions for Innovative Cities) is an Interreg cooperation project aimed to catalyse and mainstream carbon and energy reduction in the urban context. In five cities, temporally innovation networks were formed to create a strategic perspective on the transition to a low-carbon future and give an impulse for local change. In parallel, a Geospatial Urban Energy Information was set up to support scenario building and decision making. 
The five cities work closely together in a partnership with two research institutions. The first one is the Dutch Research Institution for Transitions (DRIFT), focusing on transitions towards sustainability. The second one is the CRP Hendri Tudor, which focuses on sustainably reinforcement of the economic competitiveness of companies and the fabric of society.


                                                                                                                            artist view, designed by Muriel Pagès    
 
The CO2 reduction challenge
The European Union aims to decrease CO2 emissions with 20% in 2020. Cities play a leading role in reaching this objective. The Co2 reduction challenges cities face are mainly institutional and organisational: How can policy be translated into concrete and innovative projects? How can all stakeholders formulate one vision for a sustainable city? What role should companies, research institutes and the government play? How can urban citizens be involved? To answer these questions, we need a transition from traditional to innovative ways of cooperation with regard to sustainability in the build environment.

Transition to sustainable urban planning
In MUSIC, all cities used the transition management method developed by DRIFT to create an integral strategy for CO2 reduction. The method included a series of workshops with several stakeholders (businesses, government, research institutions, citizens) resulting in a local sustainability vision and action plan. Besides, new GIS instruments for energy planning are developed and integrated in urban planning.

During the project the cities started pilot projects to test the local actions plans and energy planning tools:

- Aberdeen: renovation of a school, including installation of photovoltaic panels, to become more energy efficient and at the same time, increasing the energy efficiency awareness of students and their parents. In 2014 an Energy City Game for primary school children was launched.

- Rotterdam: new cooperation models between public and private sector are developed to make public buildings less energy consuming. These models are applied to swimming pools, schools and smart roofs in Rotterdam.

- Ludwigsburg: an energy neutral community centre is build in a socially and economic weak district in Ludwigsburg. The centre is visited every day by local residents and they are informed about the energy reductive measures.

- Montreuil: a positive energy school is build. During the building process local residents and students were involved. The school has been opened in 2014.

- Ghent: organized a participation project to receive support from the users and inhabitants of the city. Besides, Ghent did a major pilot of the GIS support tool by proclaiming the energy saving message during several events and developed a solar 3D map for the city.

International inspiration!
26 and 27 March 2015 the final conference will be held in Rotterdam.

You can download the MUSIC project brochure here.

MUSIC Landscape "Sustainable Future" by Jean Klare. The map shows the transition to a sustainable future. 
The contents of the map have been determined by the MUSIC partners during the Kick Off Meeting in Rotterdam in November 2010. 

MUSIC - Mitigation in Urban Areas