PlanIT Valley is considered to be the world’s first urban-scale collaboratory center of sustainable community innovation and research, to be developed and operated in partnership with the world’s leading companies, research and educational institutions.
The PlanIT Valley implementation in Portugal will be Living PlanIT’s center of research, development and operations. Living PlanIT will design the center to be an inspirational environment for residents and visitors in which to live, work, play and learn.
Its infrastructure and facilities will create an integrated and continually evolving living laboratory and research platform, employing state of the art technology, and providing an environment where the community can develop, deploy and experience technologies that address critical world market, economic, social, environmental and ecological needs.
A major driver behind the project is the central role that cities play in the global ecology. Because PlanIT Valley will be constructed on an undeveloped site, all the challenges that arise from existing urban infrastructure constraints will be avoided. Further, because PlanIT Valley’s residences and facilities are integrated within its educational facilities and R&D programs, innovations developed there can be tested at urban scale and evolved within PlanIT Valley for replication elsewhere.
Design on PlanIT Valley has been underway since July 2008; implementation is set for the fourth quarter of 2009, and completion in 2013.
Multi-disciplinary engineering and architecture consultancy Buro Happold has been selected as the strategic partner for the project.
