Exploring multi-modelling approaches in Hamburg, Germany’s evolving digital urban twin infrastructure

Digital urban twin technology is currently being developed, prototyped and tested to address multiple challenges related to sustainable urban development. Crossing specialist sectors and departments, such technology aims to integrate, orchestrate and govern multiple models across domains and paradigms. However, currently available solutions are largely confined to singular, tailor-made and proprietary solutions that structurally limit the development and connection of various multi-paradigm and multi-scale models. In this paper, we present our work-in-progress on the use of multi-modelling approaches within Hamburg’s evolving modular digital urban twin infrastructure. Based on participatory multi-stakeholder workshops, we address the multi-domain issue of energetic renovation and its potential gentrification effects by creating a city-scale system dynamics and a neighborhood-scale agent-based model. Connecting them via an urban model platform, preliminary findings show that such a system-of-systems approach combined with a multi-stakeholder model development seems promising for the future of multi-modelling in the context of digital urban twins.