Institute for Smart & Healthy Cities
Transforming Urban Environments
Jefferson’s Institute for Smart and Healthy Cities was created to support the research, innovation and education that is happening across the university focusing on transforming urban environments into smart and healthy cities. The institute is conceived as an aggregator and facilitator of transdisciplinary research and education across multiple disciplines driving the future of our cities and communities. Supported by data and smart technologies, Smart Cities is an emerging paradigm in the development of urban environments in an attempt to build more efficient, healthier and livable cities.
We’re changing the way we live, work, travel and learn for a healthier future.
- Understanding the entire city as a system and solving tomorrow’s most pressing problems: urbanization, public health, energy and transportation
- Making a direct impact at the community and city scale by researching the intersection of environmental conditions, housing, workplace, transit, public infrastructure and health
- Finding opportunities to further link the institute to our increasingly connected clinical systems
- Partnering with technology incubators to provide students access and support through the co-invention process
The Institute for Smart and Healthy Cities is a collaborative effort between the College of Architecture and the Built Environment, College of Population Health, and the Kanbar College of Design, Engineering and Commerce.
Smart and Healthy Cities Forum
Forced by the COVID-19 pandemic to host a vibrant event via Zoom, the 2020 Jefferson Smart and Healthy Cities Forum offered interdisciplinary experts from the University and across the country the opportunity to widely share their insights into housing policy and the evolution of cities as smart and healthy cities, among other important topics.
The event was sponsored by the AARP and the University’s Institute for Smart and Healthy Cities, a nascent initiative that seeks to “advance the development of the urban environment into smart and healthy cities through innovative collaboration across the architecture, design, engineering, health and science disciplines.”
Creating healthy cities is perhaps the great challenge of our century, and we must ensure that technology advances a better life for all our citizens. The move to smart cities gives us the opportunity to make health a part of every neighborhood, every block. We can now diagnose what's wrong in urban life, and find solutions in real time."
Research Areas
Urban Scale
- Characterize the interrelationship of urbanization, transportation and energy on population health.
- Analyze human behavior changes and the drivers for change though data-driven analysis, modeling, and simulation and visualization.
- Evaluate the research outcomes in statistical models to plan and predict future changes in the domains health, energy and transportation.
Building Scale
- Predict the effects of daylighting and natural ventilation on health outcomes in work, life and healing spaces.
- Develop new concepts for sustainability and net zero energy buildings and predict health benefits.
- Understand human behavior in relationship to building systems, space and environment.
Device Scale
- Characterize the connectivities and interfaces between the built environment and humans.
- Develop human centric building controls and management technology.
- Understand the interconnectivity between health data and environmental data, micro climate and air pollution.
Future Cities
Jefferson’s Institute for Smart and Healthy Cities is defining the framework to transform cities into more sustainable, healthy and connected communities. Starting with our own Center City and East Falls campuses, including hospitals, buildings and infrastructure, and the city of Philadelphia, the Institute will develop technologies and planning tools for large scale cities.
Sheba Medical Center
Jefferson faculty and students partnered with several institutions in Israel to explore and develop design solutions for the City of Health at Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv. The collaborative studio developed concepts for a new master plan for the medial campus. Students developed architectural designs based on population health studies, connected environments and new technologies, while focusing on aging in place and the development of an integrated community.
Related Academic Programs
Spanning across multiple disciplines and scales, this knowledge domain investigates the intersection of the built environment, population health and technology across a range of issues. Integrated in buildings and city systems, sensors and controls monitor all aspects of life and are set to transform the urban landscape.
This transformation will affect the entire city as a system and spans from buildings, transportation, environment, and infrastructure, to utilities impacting how we live, work and play in cities. The increased emphasis on multiple aspects of smart cities responds to current socio-economic and ecologic pressures such as climate change and air pollution.
The Institute for Smart and Healthy Cities is conceived as an aggregator and facilitator of transdisciplinary research and education that will drive the future of our cities using Philadelphia as a living laboratory.