We Are Smart Square Meter,
Beyond the Smart City Concept
What We Believe
In a city-powered planet, our metropolitan and urban areas are the engines of the global economy and we have plenty of examples of what works and what doesn’t when trying to make them more liveable and sustainable.
The Smart City concept has been mainly used for the development of information & communication technologies, leaving behind many important urban, social and ecological issues. Often, projects are so tied to specific new technologies that they will either fail or be obsolesced by the volatility of technological change.
A holistic urban approach integrates disciplines related with planning, energy, sociology, economics and all the new technologies and infrastructures that are the core of the functioning city.
Understanding how all fields and city-related areas interact with each other brings a technical and comprehensive vision of the urban realm beyond the concept of Smart City, to give response and offer better solutions for the present and future challenges that cities will face.
The aim is to ensure that our cities continue to catalyze social mobility, generate new ideas, and provide economic return without becoming brittle or unsustainable, avoiding the mistake of early smart city efforts focused almost solely on optimizing the phyiscal city without much thought to the experience of the actual human beings who live there.
Traditional public and private models are in the process of massive transformation. Businesses need open-minded governments and those same governments need private sector innovation for mutual success.
To accommodate growth and to continue to be productive metropolitan areas need to quickly provide better connectivity, fairer and broader options, and more vibrant spaces and amenities while finding new ways to finance, monitor and improve the performance of these projects.
There are innovative approaches and new technologies that, deployed correctly, can help cities. Great business practices and prudent policymaking matched with the appropriate technology can deliver first-rate results and positive outcomes. But technology is a means, not an end. Effective public-private partnerships are relationships built on mutual understanding, clear lines of communication, common goals, aligned incentives and outcomes.
Today's technology usually fosters wiping the slate clean, disrupting indiscriminately when, in fact, targeted change is what is needed. Outcomes matter; why and how you do something determines the societal benefit. The obvious is not necessarily the truth and intuition without data can be worthless. The city is not exempt from previous issues or matters, nor from taking into account past events. Our urban ecosystems demand close scrutiny of what we have done right in city-making so far. Technology is key, but we must make sure to lift up the right things with it.
Our Mision
We help and advise government, cities, companies, foundations, and start-ups to go beyond the Smart City concept, make sense of our urbanizing world, identify real value points and separate the Smart Hype from Solid Smart City Solutions.
We provide understanding of new business models and cutting edge solutions, and the policy frameworks and approaches that cities can use to manage urban change.
Our Vision
We believe in improving live in cities for everyone through the application of technology and knowledge to solve urban problems and create future value for society.
We are committed to the importance of having a Holistic Urban Vision to design more efficient, responsive and resilient Communities and Cities.
Our Values
Problem solvers at heart and with a Startup mentality, We are hands-on self-starters who thrive on applying a holistic and integrated approach to connect different disciplines. An eye for detail, our willingness towards developing new things and our open-minded thinker personality, make us feel comfortable facing challenges, always seeking to deliver original, disruptive and innovative solutions.
Our Holistic Approach
We work based on a Comprehensive & Holistic Approach to the City and the urban environment, founded on City Sciences.
There are several approaches running out depending on the scope or the viewpoint being considered to define or conceive a city. However, when trying to measure or qualify the performance of any city as a complex system, it is possible to infer a set of interrelated sciences and technologies that could cover, as a first approach, many of the subjects that Future Cities should take into account.
What City Sciences means is the importance of having a holistic vision of the problems related with cities. It includes the Smart City and goes beyond. It also addresses urban design, city governance, management, infrastructures, sociology and landscape. All these disciplines are approached from the accuracy of the measurable, from a more holistic view than the Smart City has. Sciences affecting the city are somewhat long-distance interest and so close to the citizen and the economy that they will never be a passing-by phenomenon. They are knowledge coming from architecture, engineering, economics and sociology, systematically structured, from which rigorous results are deducted.
Why Smart m2
We are Smart Square Meter, a company founded on these principles of smart urban change and responsible urbanism under the umbrella of City Sciences.
Our name represents a simple & powerfull idea. The sum of every single square meter of the city working together with a common direction and a unique strategy. We thought about the international basic unit of area to apply our Holistic and Comprehensive Urban Approach because we aim to push the "Smart" connotation into every single space, place and dweller in the City.
We are convinced that the potential and realistic Smart City is the conjuction of Smart Actions, Decission, Policies and Projects under a proper Urban Change Management Framework.
The team
Who We Are
We are City Scientists. Engineers, architects, sociologists, economists, geographers, landscapers and professionals in relation with the city development. We come from many different backgrounds but we believe in applying a holistic and transdisciplinary approach to give response and offer better solutions for urban issues.
We respond to the demand of professionals with an interdisciplinary, technical and comprehensive vision of the urban environment beyond the concept of Smart Cities. We are positioned where we must, beyond the labels, working a real and needed mix in-between architecture, urbanism, technology and innovation. We believe in doing things different.
Our holistic approach also refers to the heterogeneous and international team of city professionals we are. We have a unique diversity that allow us to understand and manage the multidimensional nature of the city considering issues from many different viewpoints, backgrounds, and also cultures at the same time.
Behind us, we have the support of an outstanding network of urban experts, consultants, collaborators and lecturers from the most distinguished universities and institutions worldwide. We all have a common metting point, the Master in City Sciences.
