Link Lab - Tools & Knowledge
Our LinkLab is where urban innovation meets technology and decision-making tools with data-informed knowledge. We transform our ideas into products for healthy cities and streets.
Digital Urbanism for Intelligent Places
We are working on making cities, infrastructure and places responsive to their new digital environment, with tools that bring a better understanding about how space, time and people are interconnected. A smarter, healthier use of our space is possible when we understand how the flows of people, energy, climate, traffic, food, waste and data are circulating.
We dedicate our research to the synergy between the Internet of Things, the circularity of a place & community and the potential of the sharing economy. We develop digital solutions and products for communities, districts, cities, streets and green spaces that are in need for a smart use of their resources and space, from micro-mobility traffic to smart parking management, waste collection and reuse, biodiversity’s diversification and urban logistics intelligence.
The Future of Micromobility
We have built 15 years of expertise in urban mobility in Europe, China and Africa, and we are now testing several models of (micro-)mobility services and vehicles designed for their own local culture and environment. The potential diversification of services, vehicles and related infrastructure is eventually bringing the perspective of a mobility for all. We attach a great importance on how vehicles and infrastructure should be adapted to the needs of the people. And we work on the interface between mobility services and their environment, such as seamless intermodality, low impact parking space design & management and automation-responsive public space and connected facilities.
Accessibility to and from vehicles, their ergonomics and their impacts on the urban environment are essential criteria of design and implementation. In this regard, we are dedicating our time to a new era of mobility driven by innovation for everyone.
The Shan Shui Approach
ShanShui（山水）in Chinese means Mountain and Water, which are 2 very important elements of Chinese landscape since thousands of years. The research of balance between landscape and the built environment has been used in traditional Chinese urbanism for centuries but recently lost its influence along with rapid industrialization.
As our cities are less responsive to healthy lifestyles for all, we forget that nature is the most important ingredient to find balance in our lives.
At Citilinks LinkLab, we experiment how to apply traditional landscape science from China into our modern environment. This precious knowledge gives us keys about how to locate and orient a new settlement, community or city according the site’s characteristics. The approach leads to protect pre-existing nature and to build a harmonious and permanent relation with it. We develop this approach as an effective tool to design and restore more the soul and resilience of places and we anticipate the adaptation to emerging challenges.
Although the ShanShui knowledge has been forgotten or ignored by most of us, we work on the restoration of the missing links between the human being and its living environment, in order to preserve and improve people’s vitality and health. After a decade of experience in China, we have learned how to bridge ancestral disciplines and current techniques and knowledge at the scales of cities, buildings and streets, and we constantly work on the right orientation, the right forms and the right shapes for the right places.
Products & Tools for Better Decision Making
As we collaborate with decision-makers and stakeholders from municipalities, territories and industries that are impacting our physical and digital environment, our LinkLab is involved in the design and production of physical and digital modelling, 3D printed tools, analytical animations and maps, city models and prototypes of mobility services. We are always open to new challenges when it’s about developing the right tool with the right technology for the right decision! Feel free to connect with us if you are looking for new ideas!
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