The RETIME project (Horizon Europe Innovation Action) aims to address impactful changes at both the contextual district level and individual homes of natural and human-caused disasters. It will introduce a data-driven tool that aggregates existing data from weather stations, sensor networks, and satellite images, automated on-site surveys to simulate the impacts of current phenomena and future projections. The innovative aspect lies in an advanced computational analysis that generates prospective scenarios based on socio-architectural and environmental studies, combined with local, territorial remote and on-site surveys.  

The Lisbon City Council invited ISTAR-Iscte to provide technical support to the BIM methodology for the development of the Digital Twin, during the development of the execution project, the construction works and its monitoring, and the delivery of the final model  of the Contract for the drainage tunnels in the city of Lisbon and associated interventions. This project, of strategic importance for the city of Lisbon, will last for 3 years and a value of approximately €140,000,000.  

Cultural heritage is as a cultural right but not for all people. Built heritage is at risk in earthquake-prone areas or due to armed conflicts or uncontrolled house prices growth, such as in central metropolitan areas and tourist destinations. Underrepresented, partially demolished, or abandoned houses, humble constructions associated with biases or social stigma are also under threat. In these countless cases, overlapping memories and physical legacies are being lost. As a case in point amid this complex picture, we analyse traditional architecture with overhanging timber-based volume, known as casas de andares em ressalto, in three regions in Portugal (Northern Portugal, Central Portugal, Lisbon, and Tagus Valley). This construction system evolves into a set of more informed solutions during the post-earthquake rebuilding in the late 18th century. As a response of social distancing and disinformation on heritage sites, we propose a place-based learning based on advanced data information and visualization. This study raises awareness on the importance of preserving these memories and it promotes the use of timber-based design solutions. Speak_OVER also contributes to understand how best-compromise strategies of adaptive reuse can be implemented in future scenarios, involving critical stakeholders, such as homeowners’ rights groups, different heritage actors, tourist operators, and civic authorities.

Athena Project aims to develop the digital skills of university professors, reinforcing their response to the challenges that universities face today and in the future. The project seeks to foster cooperative learning environments, making them transformative and inclusive through the adoption of new technologies, such as e-learning, gaming platforms, virtual and augmented reality, systematically modeled to activate key competences in digital learning. The project will create models that teachers can adopt and adapt to their classes, using different pedagogical approaches.

This project aims to stimulate the circular economy by introducing a Sustainability Enhanced Construction Information Classification System (CICS) to be used by Portuguese-speaking building designers, contractors and managers. It will allow the unification of terminology at all scales, facilitating communication between agents and supporting material and component selection and accurate assessment of the building's impacts over the life cycle in all dimensions. The ultimate goal is to improve buildings’ performance and to reduce waste through the use of digital tools that provide informed management and selection of construction materials and elements. 

The goal for the funding by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation is to encourage changes in the behavior of ISCTE-IUL campus users to reduce energy consumption and improve campus environmental sustainability. It will combine knowledge of Psychology, Engineering, Architecture and Informatics, involving the entire ISCTE-IUL community and will be implemented IoT strategies, behavioral economics and gamification with the connection to BIM models. The project is developed over 4 sequential phases:    1st stage: Diagnosis of the current situation: a. Analysis of the ISCTE-IUL community's perception of environmental sustainability; B. Installation of sensors to measure the energy performance of ISCTEIUL users (eg temperature, humidity, luminosity, noise and power consumption).    Goals:   1) Diagnosis of community perception based on surveys of the target population. Feedback received will serve to identify the main requirements and approaches of our platform. Indicators - Report with variables, data collection and analysis. Goals - Evaluate a representative sample of non-teaching staff, teachers, students and visitors.   2) Real-time collection of sensor data and respective analysis on IoT platform for identification of patterns and behaviors. Indicators - reading real-time data identification patterns. Weekly, monthly, yearly reports. Real-time information on mobile devices. Goals - installation of measurements in 20 locations (reading energy, air quality, luminosity, temperature, noise).    2nd phase: Definition of objectives for the reduction of energy consumption, taking into account the quantitative and qualitative baseline built in the 1st phase of the project related to the calculation of the ecological footprint (consumption) by individual, room, department, building. Indicators - consumption metrics by person, room, department and building. Behavior analysis and its quantification Goals - Perceived behavior and organization of a workshop to disseminate ...

BIM is vigorously changing all phases of buildings’ life cycle, from strategic planning, design, construction, operation and decommission. Building operation, which is the longest and most significant phase, has it’s own nuances. Professional roles are different from other phases since architects and civil engineers are often replaced by managers and MEP (Mechanical, electrical, and plumbing) professionals, focus is on maintenance, cost reduction and profitability and user comfort. BIM, as a natural tool for building information storage and use, is a natural part of a Facility Management System. We work on the development of BIM platforms for the management of large, multi-building facilities, such as education campus or hospitals, where scale, geolocalization and visual communication render traditional methods inefficient. We work with Facility Management platforms that link with and take advantage of BIM models and we employ Virtual and Augmented Reality technologies to enhance and visualize facilities’ data.

Urban areas are increasingly the predominant combat scenario and pose great difficulties to military commanders due to their complexity, presence of civilians, unpredictability and difficulty of communication. The infrastructures of the Centre for Combat Training in Urban Environments of the School of Arms, of the Portuguese Army in Mafra, Portugal, are well suited for training of combat planning of small combat units, from platoon up to company level, with a building campus called “Aldeia Camões”, a command and control room and a shooting range simulator. This is the appropriate place for development and testing of technologies that can increase training capabilities in the planning and execution of military operations in urban areas. This project develops a solution that uses Virtual and Augmented Reality technologies to support Planning of Combat Training in Urban Areas in the mentioned “Aldeia Camões”. 

The overall goal of IRIS is to provide a natural interaction communication platform accessible and adapted for all users, particularly for people with speech impairments and elderly in indoor scenarios. Human-Computer interaction with this platform will adopt the principles of universal design and natural user interfaces such as speech, silent speech, gestures, tactile and haptic devices, pictograms, animated characters and personalized synthetic voices.   The platform will provide a set of services that allow easy access to social networks, friends and remote family members, fighting social-exclusion of people with special needs or impairments. Application of these features will be performed in the context of serious games, virtual reality environments and assisted living scenarios. We will also explore the use of personalized avatars (that resemble with the user) in asynchronous human-human and human-machine communications, in situations where the user has lost his/her voice and in scenarios where it is not possible to have a video signal transmission due to low bandwidth or privacy reasons. Biometrics will complement the platform, in the sense that authentication and authorization are fundamental aspects for assuring access security to personal information in a natural way.

ISTAR-IUL collaborates on projects where assessing people’s satisfaction with the built environment, both existing and under design, is a central question. In the scope of an ongoing project of AUDAX, ISTAR-IUL collaborated with the design and 3D modeling of interior spaces for new concepts for stores of leading companies from Telecom, Bank, Insurance and Energy industries. For such an assessment the 3D models of stores were created using several computer aided design software, including Unity, and then visualized by potential stores’ users with Oculus Rift. The immersive visualization enables potential users to have a full experience in the designed store and assess how the differences in the design can affect their use of the space. For a collective experience inside the store PockeCAVE could have been used which would enable e.g. group discussion.  

For the first time an experience in Immersive Virtual Reality was used to show the population of the Ponte de Sôr municipality future ideas for the city. Using a Head Mounted Display (HDM) it was possible for everyone at the “Flavours Fair”, April 29th to May 1st, to navigate virtually in the future market and surrounding areas. This technology, developed by the Digital Living Spaces group of ISTAR-IUL, ensures full immersion and a sense of presence that is impossible with any other representation method. According to the author of the architecture project, architect João Monteiro, “this method of exploring a future space has enormous potential for communication with clients and lay people “. Immersive virtual reality gives the user the experience of being in real space. The user can walk virtually to their liking by choosing the route and looking in all directions. “I noticed once again that plans, cross-sections, elevations and even models are not understood by most people, but in this virtual environment they perfectly understand the space”, said Sara Eloy, who led the team of researchers who adapted the architecture model for virtual reality and accompanied the demonstration. This partnership between ISCTE-IUL, the João Correia Monteiro architects studio and the Ponte de Sôr municipality made it possible for all its residents to have a thorough knowledge of what will be the space that will result from the renovation of the city’s market, creating an area for startups and creative businesses that will revitalize the city. Navigate in Ponte de Sôr model here.