Retrofitting Soviet-Era Apartment Buildings With 'Smart City' Features: The H2020 Smartencity Project In Tartu, Estonia

The retrofitting and renewal of modern-era socialist housing estates is a prominent issue throughout the world. There are different political choices to deal with dilapidated socialist housing estates. The transformation of such estates in post-socialist cities has so far focused primarily on improving their physical conditions and increasing the energy efficiency building-by-building. However, an integrated and area-based regeneration approach would have greater potential to influence the entire neighbourhood, as well as the inhabitants' environmental behaviour. The Smart City is a concept that can achieve environmental sustainability ambitions as well as large housing estate regeneration goals. This chapter describes the implementation of the Smart City concept to the renovation of a Soviet-era apartment buildings area, based on the example of the SmartEnCity project in Tartu, Estonia.