Today, the built environment is responsible for 40% of the EU’s energy consumption5 and households contribute to more than 60% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.6 VIRTUe feels that within the wide scope of urban transformation, it is not a lack of choices or awareness, but a lack of action that is the greatest challenge to building a healthy and sustainable built environment. 

To achieve this we want to: 

• Activate people to embrace an environmentally-friendly lifestyle. 
• Encourage social interaction in cities. 
• Create a more dynamic built environment. 

With our concept ripple, we engage individuals on a personal level and create a framework that encourages social interaction. 

ripple is inspired by the so–called ripple-effect, and similarly, it starts as a small set of actions, initiated in Wuppertal, to eventually create an impact in different places around the world. Our project is about the people, their social connections and the scale of their impact. We focus on designers, users and neighbours. As designers, we create a framework which encourages the users to live an environmentally friendly lifestyle from the sphere of their homes. Through a platform for social interaction, people can inspire each other about their actions, and this influence spreads from neighbour to neighbour at an increasingly larger scale. 

ripple meets the principles of active, attractive, adaptive. Residents are activated through an attractive design, which stimulates environmentally friendly living and encourages social interaction. Finally, the adaptability helps to initialise and repeat this cycle in different places and scenarios.