What would we do if we had the exact same city that we live in duplicated on our smartphones or digital devices and we were free to try out different kinds of lifestyles in that space? If we could easily simulate urban redevelopment and town planning like a game, many people would undoubtedly come up with ideas for making their cities more comfortable.

The Obayashi Project Team has envisaged what it might be like when digital twins evolve and can be constructed on the scale of cities and towns, making them easy for anyone to use. OWNTOWN is a town concept in which everyone plays a leading role, contributing their own unique thoughts and ideas as residents.

Today, urban development and town planning are steered by national and local governments. Plans are formed based on various rules, such as those relating to area selection and restrictions on the use and size of buildings. Towns and cities that more or less satisfy a large number of people are built, but there are few opportunities to actually reflect the will of the people in their plan.

Ideally, town planning would incorporate residents' ideas and opinions on the city and the future wherever possible, but that is not easy to achieve. Trying out each idea in the real world would be optimal, but is not feasible. In reality, we have not even been able to grasp each individual's ideas. But what if you could use a digital twin? You could give shape to various thoughts and ideas in the digital space, conduct repeated simulations, and create the most balanced plan that addresses conflicting conditions and people's needs. Working in the digital space enables us to freely simulate the consequences of changing certain conditions. The outcome of such a process of review will likely be a plan that is acceptable for more people.

OWNTOWN incorporates collective wisdom into town planning.

To be able to utilize common information, you would need to create a core platform for collecting necessary pieces of information from various different fields and shaping it into a form that anyone can use. OWNTOWN provides an easy-to-use building platform. It brings together not only the necessary static data for town planning and living, such as maps and structural information on buildings and civil engineering structures, but also dynamic data such as weather patterns, the flow of people and goods, traffic-related information, and the utilization status of different infrastructure.

OWNTOWN also includes construction app services that are easy to use, even for people without any digital technology or construction expertise. OWNTOWN Future can be utilized to help predict the near future based on various data and conditions, and to predict where the optimal location may be when looking for candidate locations for urban development. OWNTOWN Construction, a service for building urban functions, covers not only new construction, but also the expansion, reconstruction, renovation, and remaking of existing structures.

The building platform contains all the necessary information for urban development, including real estate transaction data (purchase feasibility, price, conditions, etc.) and relevant laws and regulations. The construction app takes all this data into consideration and is able to formulate proposals that constitute the most feasible plans. Once a plan is decided, design data would be automatically generated, building permit applied, the necessary materials, machine tools, and personnel confirmed, and the final construction plans created.

Basically, you can do everything, from choosing the city (location) in which to live to creating the construction plan, just with the app.

Units and Modules
During construction of buildings and other structures in the future, it will be difficult to rely solely on methods that require expert craftsmanship. The standard method for building houses, various facilities, and cities themselves will likely involve assembling modular materials and parts of standard sizes and connection methods using minimal tools and then combining those modules to make building units.

While it might be easy to build cities using digital twins, the whole idea would be meaningless if it takes too much time for people to actually start living in those towns because the digital plans and real space may be out of sync by then. That is why OWNTOWN would use unit-based construction for all the infrastructure, housing, and facilities that make up a city. With OWNTOWN, it is possible to create a diverse range of cities by assembling and rearranging units, much like construction toys. The speed of digital planning and the actual transformation of real cities would be better aligned, and it would be easier for anyone to plan towns using the building platform.

Conventional unit-based construction offers some choices in terms of size and color, but with OWNTOWN, units would be formed by combining modular components and parts. This would dramatically increase the degree of freedom of design and function and help address multiple needs. The modularization and standardization of methods for connecting units would also make the construction (installation), dismantling (removal), and relocation (replacement) of units much easier. Refurbishing and upgrading structures would be a simple process, facilitating rapid urban development.

In OWNTOWN locations where residents create and improve their own towns, that process would be complicated if various functions were outsourced. Autonomous decision-making and operation by the towns is therefore important. For example, the energy that supports daily life would come from an energy unit of a capacity appropriate for each town and be supplied through the town's infrastructure units. In the past, specialist knowledge was required to manage these systems, but with a digital twin, usage, operating status, and infrastructure ageing can be monitored in real time. This makes it possible to identify the risk of any accidents or deterioration at an early stage.

In these ways, instead of supplying energy from distant facilities over a wide area, distributed generation that establishes supply sources within the towns would help promote energy conservation and optimize energy supply and demand. Furthermore, it would help minimize adversity in the event of a sudden disaster and enable early recovery.

Digital technology is now an essential part of our daily lives, but the full use of digital technology in housing and town planning is only just beginning. The idea of basing urban development on digital twins does bring to mind potential negative aspects such as unauthorized data use, but if residents are able to create optimal towns for themselves, they should be able to envisage a bright future.

Digital twins have enormous potential. We hope that this OWNTOWN concept will help solve social issues and inspire people to build a new society.