#15: What Will Tomorrow's Sustainable City Look Like?

Sriyani Rao, Host: Hi Florence, thank you for joining us today. First off: What can you tell us about Building Tomorrow?

Florence: Well, with this story, we have decided to give our teams a mission. Imagine. Imagine they will be Gustave Eiffel in 2022. How would they do, to make such a disruptive project, sustainable? How would they do to build a tower that will be net zero home, without waste, with everything created around sustainability circularity, and regeneration? This is what we have asked them to do.

Sriyani: So, what would be the five stages of the value chain covered in this documentary?

Florence: In this documentary, there will be five stages in the value chain. First: pre-project. How will you design your sustainable Eiffel Tower, and how you do it collaboratively between all stakeholders, private and public stakeholders, working all together on the virtual twin of the project in the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. First stage.

Second stage: You know that in a building, energy and resources are very important when it comes to decarbonization. And for that, you have to plan for renewable energy and reuse. Third stage: Steel. steel is very important in a tower, because we need a lot of that. But steel processes can be very carbonized. So, you have to invent new steel processes that will be carbon-free. Fourth stage: Logistics. How do you bring everything you need at a place of construction in a sustainable way? And this needs a virtual twin of the supply chain. And last but not least, at the end, how do you build sustainably? And in order to do that, the best way is to do it modular, productize your building, which is a brand-new way of building towers and assets. So in this documentary, you will see how these five stages make the construction of the sustainable Eiffel Tower an adventure, but also a very logic sustainable process.

Sriyani: What do you hope to achieve with the release of this documentary? How will the project help the transformation of the infrastructure & cities sector?

Florence: The Building Tomorrow program is at the center of what we want to do at Dassault Systèmes. In fact, at Dassault Systèmes our purpose is sustainable innovation to harmonize product, nature and life. What does it mean? It means that what we want to provide is our solutions that are going to empower our ecosystem of innovators to build a more sustainable future. And we are in the decade to deliver for climate change.

It means that we only have till 2030 to significantly reduce our way of innovating, creating, building and life cycling of our assets, our we won't be able to give back to our children a livable planet. And it all begins with an infrastructure. Infrastructure and cities represent more than 60% of the world's emissions, most than 40% of the waste of water. So we have to change the way infrastructure and cities are built for a more sustainable future. And this is what we want to do at Dassault Systèmes.

Sriyani: The Eiffel Tower is at the heart of this documentary, and this project as a whole. Can you explain the role of the tower in this project?

Florence: The Eiffel Tower is at the center of the story. Why? Well, first, I love the Eiffel Tower. When I came back to Paris some years ago to live in the city, I took an apartment right next to the Eiffel Tower. And each evening, I was looking at the Tower and saying, "Wow, this is beautiful, this is a symbol of Paris."

But it's also a symbol of disruption. At the time of Gustave Eiffel, nobody wanted this tower. He had to fight to make it happen. And this is a kind of fight that we need to make it happen, to build a sustainable world. So, the Eiffel Tower is also there as a symbol of disruption, disruptions that we need to make sustainable. And that's the reason why we have put it at the center of our story.

Well, this project also has a social dimension. Of course, a tower and its environment has to be part of a city. It has to be there for the use of all citizens, for the benefit of all citizens. So, we have created the tower, as well as a garden, a school, a research center. Why? Because we think that cities are a place where people meet, people learn, people share. And we want this tower to have that goal as well in our project.

Sriyani: Let's talk a bit about virtual twins. How can virtual twins bring value to organizations that aim to make sustainability a key pillar of their operations?

Florence: I think digital tools are powerful enablers when it comes to helping organizations building products, or building more sustainably. And among all the digital tools, one stands out, and it's the virtual twin.

So, what is a virtual twin? A virtual twin is a digital representation of a product, a company, or an ecosystem as complex as a city. And the beauty of it is that it's multi-scale, multi-physics. And you can run thousands and millions of simulations on your city, on your buildings, on your planes, and decide for the most sustainable one. You can put heatwaves, tsunamis on your buildings, and you check whether it's still resilient.

So it's very powerful, because then when you design your building, you can optimize everything for sustainability, you can know in advance how much energy is going to be consumed, how waste is going to be recycled, how water can be reused. And instead of looking at it afterwards, everything can be decided beforehand. You basically design and build for sustainability.

Sriyani: A project of this magnitude, with so many stakeholders and so many moving parts, requires a high degree of collaboration. How did you and your team approach and handle this aspect of the project?

Florence: Well, for such a project, collaboration is a key topic. The only way to make it happen is for collaboration between your urban planners, architects, construction companies, energy and resources companies, logistic actors. And in order for all of them to be able to collaborate, we basically need the virtual twin of the project, but also the virtual twin of the supply chain, and basically, one common language. And that's why 3D is in this project. It's a common language of all these people working on this amazing project, on the basis of the virtual twin. And this is only possible with the platform: the 3DEXPERIENCE platform.

Sriyani: Well, I'm afraid that's all the time we have for now. Thank you very much, Florence, for being a part of this one-on-one. Before we wrap things up, is there anything you would like to add for our listeners?

Florence: At Dassault Systèmes, we are committed to sustainable infrastructure. We are in the decade to deliver for climate change. We need to make it happen starting today. And we would love to do that with all of you.

Sriyani: Thank you. To view the full documentary — and find out more about the Building Tomorrow project — visit 3ds.com/insights/building-tomorrow.

Narrator: Disruptors Unleashed is produced by Dassault Systèmes. For more episodes, follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Deezer, or your nearest streaming platforms. To learn more about Dassault Systèmes, visit us at 3ds.com.