From City Data to New Building Functions: How the Next Use AI Tool Is Being Developed
An unused municipal building can present an opportunity for new services, community activities, or public functions. An interview about the SAM-SUD project explains how Košice can use data, spatial analysis, and the Next Use AI tool to find new uses for urban spaces that make sense not only for the building itself but also for its surroundings.
The focus is on the Next Use AI tool, which is being developed to support decision-making regarding what new functions could be assigned to unused or abandoned public buildings in Košice. Its goal is not to replace the city’s decisions, but to provide higher-quality input: what is missing in the area, which services are available, where there is an oversupply of them, and what the public’s needs are.
Róbert Pollák from Creative Industry Košice discusses the first, less visible, yet crucial phase of Next Use AI’s development in an interview. He discusses collecting data from various sources, cleaning it, supplementing it, and linking it within the City Inspector GIS platform. This platform allows us to view the city not merely as a living structure of services, distances, needs, and relationships.
An important topic is the proximity and saturation model. This model examines how close services—such as schools, healthcare facilities, stores, and other urban functions—are to individual locations, as well as whether residents in the area have a real choice. Another source of inspiration is the concept of the 15-minute city, according to which basic services should be accessible within a short walking distance.
SAM-SUD is thus not just a project about renovating buildings, but also about changing the way the city thinks about its assets. In the future, Next Use AI is intended to connect three layers of decision-making: the city’s strategic goals and policies, the public’s needs, and data-driven spatial recommendations. Only by combining these elements can a proposal emerge that not only finds a new function for an empty building but also one that makes sense in that specific location.
The interview therefore reveals everything that goes into creating a smart urban tool: patient analytical work, data integration, model testing, and the search for connections—without which high-quality recommendations could not be developed. It is an invitation to anyone interested in how Košice can transform urban spaces into sustainable, functional, and socially beneficial places.
SAM-SUD Zoom In video /Katalin Bunyevacz a Róbert Pollák/
This project is co-financed by the European Union.