People-centred smart cities meet subsurface imaging and living architecture: EIC-backed WIDMO and InnoRenew CoE
- ›On World Cities Day the European Innovation Council spotlighted two projects that put people at the centre of smart city design: WIDMO Spectral Technologies and InnoRenew CoE's REMEDY.
- ›WIDMO has developed a spectral ground penetrating radar system and analytics stack for deep, high-resolution subsurface mapping to reduce construction risk and improve public safety.
- ›REMEDY is developing an archibiome tattoo using engineered microbial inks to add functional living layers to buildings, with aims including pathogen resistance, carbon sequestration and oxygen production.
- ›InnoRenew secured EUR 50,000 in BOOST funding and formed a partnership with CTFC to monitor timber buildings, underscoring early moves from lab research to field readiness.
- ›Both initiatives sit inside wider EIC portfolios that face regulatory, ethical and scaling challenges that will determine practical uptake by cities and industry.
People-centred smart cities meet subsurface imaging and living architecture
World Cities Day highlights trends and tensions in urban development. This year the European Innovation Council used the occasion to profile two EIC-backed initiatives that embody the theme People-Centred Smart Cities. One tackles a persistent practical problem in urban construction and public safety. The other proposes a provocative, biology-led reimagining of building surfaces. Both are early stage or scaling innovations that illustrate how technology, regulation and public acceptance will shape what actually reaches streets and building facades.
Why these projects matter for cities
Urban authorities juggle competing pressures. Cities need more housing and infrastructure, but digging and retrofitting in dense environments is costly and risky. At the same time there is growing interest in greening cities, reducing embodied carbon in construction, and improving indoor environmental quality. WIDMO Spectral Technologies and InnoRenew CoE approach those problems from very different angles. WIDMO focuses on non-invasive subsurface intelligence to reduce risk and costs in construction projects. InnoRenew is advancing engineered living materials to add functional capabilities to building exteriors and interiors. Both claim people-centred benefits but face different technical and non-technical hurdles before those benefits can be widely realised.
WIDMO Spectral Technologies: deeper subsurface intelligence
Poland-based deep tech startup WIDMO Spectral Technologies has been developing next-generation subsurface imaging since 2018. The company led an EIC-backed project called WIDMO Cities from 2023 to 2025 and received support under the EIC Accelerator Blended Finance instrument. Its proposition is a combined hardware and software stack that the company says delivers higher-resolution ground imaging and greater penetration depth than many conventional ground-penetrating radars. The stated aims are practical and incremental. By mapping utilities, foundations, voids and geological hazards before construction, stakeholders can cut risk, reduce unexpected costs and improve public safety.
WIDMO positions its product as a full in-house tech stack that includes sensors, processing pipelines and interpretation software. The company markets services to construction, mining and environmental clients. It is expanding in Spain and sees that market as a gateway to Latin America. WIDMO also received recognition at the Urban Future conference in May 2025 where it won an award for its urban subsurface scanning solution.
| Feature | WIDMO claim | Practical caveats |
| Penetration depth | Up to 45 metres | Depth varies with soil type and moisture and may be lower in conductive soils |
| Resolution | High resolution at depth claims | Resolution and target identifiability require ground truth and calibration |
| Tech model | Spectral GPR plus cloud analytics and in-house stack | Operational success depends on data processing, trained interpreters and integration with planning workflows |
| Primary use cases | Construction, mining, utility mapping, hazard detection | Adoption requires demonstration projects and integration with public works procurement |
Potential impact and limitations
If the technology performs as claimed in a range of urban soils, it could reduce unexpected utility strikes and the costs of trial excavations. That would deliver direct value to developers and public authorities and indirectly benefit residents through fewer service disruptions. Yet the technology will face typical scaleup tests. Buyers will want independent validation, comparative studies against other methods, and evidence of cost benefits in real projects. Market expansion into other countries will require adaptation to local geology and meeting procurement and regulatory requirements for public infrastructure projects.
InnoRenew CoE and REMEDY: living inks and the archibiome tattoo
The Slovenian Centre of Excellence InnoRenew CoE, hosted by the University of Primorska, leads the REMEDY project under the EIC Pathfinder and the EIC Engineered Living Materials portfolio. REMEDY proposes an archibiome tattoo in the form of living microbial inks that can be printed onto building surfaces to provide both decorative and functional properties. The idea draws on concepts from microbiome science, synthetic biology and biofabrication and is framed as probiotic architecture.
REMEDY describes its inks as working similar to probiotic skincare. The project uses metagenomics to monitor the functionome of consortia, in silico genome-scale metabolic models to propose microorganism combinations, and machine learning to predict growth patterns and structural outcomes. The ambition is to translate microbiology research into engineered living materials and compatible biofabrication processes aimed at personalised design in architecture.
Funding, partnerships and field work
REMEDY has received BOOST funding of EUR 50,000 in June 2025. BOOST is an EIC initiative to enhance the contribution of EIC-funded projects to portfolio activities. This funding enables REMEDY to take part in PATH2ELMs, an initiative aligned with the Engineered Living Materials strategic plan and running through 31 March 2027. PATH2ELMs comprises partners from Slovenia, Austria and the Netherlands including InnoRenew CoE, Tiger Coatings, Graz University of Technology and Xylhotrade.
In July 2025 InnoRenew announced a partnership with Centre de Ciència i Tecnologia Forestal de Catalunya, CTFC. The teams deployed sensors and software in CTFC facilities to monitor timber structures and indoor air quality. Sensors now track relative humidity, temperature, moisture in timber, heat flux in wall systems, weathering, noise levels and other building performance metrics. InnoRenew provided the sensor network, data storage, analysis and alerting. The monitoring work aims to inform timber building performance and the dynamics between external influences and internal conditions.
| Item | REMEDY / InnoRenew CoE | Notes |
| EIC instrument | EIC Pathfinder and ELMs Portfolio; BOOST funding EUR 50,000 | Pathfinder supports higher risk research; BOOST is project-level portfolio support |
| Core idea | Archibiome tattoo using living microbial inks | High novelty raises regulatory, safety and acceptance questions |
| Key partners | CTFC, Tiger Coatings, Graz University of Technology, Xylhotrade | Partnerships combine materials, monitoring and scale-up expertise |
| Field activity | Sensor deployments at CTFC facilities for timber monitoring | Field data helps bridge lab research and building performance |
Risks, regulation and public acceptance
Living materials bring potential benefits but also novel governance challenges. Regulatory classification is not settled for many ELM applications. During an EIC-EMA workshop in February 2025 projects in the ELM portfolio discussed product classification, approval pathways, safety requirements and clinical trial analogues for bioprinted tissues. For REMEDY the pathway is likely to involve environmental and product safety agencies rather than medicines regulators, but uncertainty remains. Key non-technical hurdles include demonstrating long-term stability and function of microbial consortia, avoiding unintended environmental release, assessing interactions with human occupants, and building public trust where microorganisms are present on façades and interiors.
Scaling up also poses practical questions. Engineered living materials need reproducible manufacturing and quality control. Architecture practice is conservative about introducing novel materials into buildings because of liability, maintenance and insurance implications. Demonstration projects, standards and clear regulatory guidance will be essential for adoption beyond specialist or experimental buildings.
How these projects sit inside broader EIC agendas
REMEDY is part of the EIC Engineered Living Materials Pathfinder Challenge. That portfolio is intended to position Europe at the forefront of ELMs by funding a set of complementary projects that share technical and regulatory challenges. The portfolio aims to address standardisation, ethical and social aspects, regulatory engagement and to accelerate dissemination. Recent portfolio activity includes progress reports for year 2 and year 3 and workshops with regulators. The ELMs portfolio spans projects working on bio-hybrid tissues, fungi-bacteria composites, implantable probiotic bioreactors and other biomedical and material applications.
WIDMO, supported through the EIC Accelerator Blended Finance route, represents the EIC's other arm focused on scaling deep tech companies that combine hardware, software and services. Both funding tracks show the EIC trying to catalyse technological leadership in different domains while recognising that market success requires validation, standards and regulatory clarity.
What cities and policymakers should watch
For urban planners and procurement officers the takeaways are pragmatic. Subsurface intelligence technologies can deliver near-term risk reduction if evidence of performance accumulates in diverse soils and integrated into planning workflows. Cities should ask for independent validation, project-level cost benefit analyses and data formats that link mapping outputs to asset registers.
On engineered living materials, decision makers must weigh potential environmental and health benefits against regulatory unknowns and public perception. Early field monitoring efforts such as the timber building work with CTFC are useful because they produce performance data and expose operational issues. Policymakers can accelerate responsible deployment by supporting demonstration projects, clarifying regulatory pathways and funding interdisciplinary assessments of risk and life cycle impacts.
Conclusion
WIDMO Spectral Technologies and InnoRenew CoE illustrate two distinct ways innovation reaches cities. One is incremental and risk reducing. The other is transformative and disruptive. Both are important for a people-centred smart city agenda. Their ultimate value will depend less on rhetoric and more on measurable performance, independent evidence, regulatory clarity and public acceptance. The EIC is providing different instruments to support both approaches but the next phase for both projects will be translation from promising prototypes and field pilots to robust, regulated and trusted solutions for urban environments.
Sources and further information
Project and organisational pages for WIDMO Spectral Technologies and InnoRenew CoE, EIC portfolio documentation for the Engineered Living Materials Pathfinder Challenge, REMEDY project materials and public announcements from InnoRenew regarding BOOST funding and the CTFC partnership. The REMEDY project is listed under Horizon Europe grant agreement No 101185862. The EIC and European Commission disclaimers apply to funded project communications.