What Is a Smart Building ?
Smart buildings, or at least discussion of the concept, originated in the early 1980s. In 1984, for instance, a New York Times article described real estate developers creating “a new generation of buildings that almost think for themselves ... called intelligent buildings.” Such a building was defined as “a marriage of two technologies—old-fashioned building management and telecommunications.”
In the early 1980s, several major technology trends were under way. One was that the U.S. telecommunications industry was undergoing deregulation and new companies, products, services and innovations entered the telecom marketplace. The second major trend, which at the time seemed somewhat sep- arate and unrelated, was the creation and emergence of the personal computer industry. This era also spawned the first real connection between real estate developers and technology. The newly unregulated telecommunications indus- try presented an opportunity for building owners to resell services within their facilities and add value to their business. This new business model was known as “shared tenant services.”
Under shared tenant services, the building owner procured a large telecom- munications system for the entire building and leased telecommunication ser- vices to individual tenants. Major real estate developers offered such shared services but eventually abandoned such arrangements due to inadequate prof- itability and lack of knowledge and skills in telecommunications. It was, how- ever, one of the first times that building owners thought about and acted on the idea of major technology systems in buildings.
In the next decade or so, there were some modest technological advance- ments in buildings, including structured cabling systems, audio visual systems, building automation controllers with direct digital control (DDC), conditioned space for network equipment, access control systems, and video surveillance, among others. Yet guidelines for building construction documents released in 1994, the Construction Specifications Institute’s MasterFormat, had 16 divi- sions, barely mentioning technology. Many times engineers and designers used a “Division 17” for the specification of technology-related systems.
Division 17 was not a formal specification division but was used for materi- als and equipment not included in the other 16 divisions. During that time period a traditional mind-set prevailed among most building designers in which technology was an afterthought rather than integral to the building design. The latest revision of the MasterFormat in 2004 was an improvement, but still lags in terms of technological advances in buildings. It is evident that technology is advancing more rapidly and probably progressing through sev- eral life cycles during the time it takes to revise the construction specification format guidelines.
Smart buildings are not just about installing and operating technology or technology advancements. Technology and the systems in buildings are simply enablers, a means to an end. The technology allows us to operate the building more efficiently; to construct the buildings in a more efficient way, to provide productive and healthy spaces for the occupants and visitors, to provide a safe environment, to provide an energy-efficient and sustainable environment, and to differentiate and improve the marketability of the building.
A smart building involves the installation and use of advanced and integrated building technology systems. These systems include building automation, life safety, telecommunications, user systems, and facility management systems. Smart buildings recognize and reflect the technological advancements and con- vergence of building systems, the common elements of the systems and the additional functionality that integrated systems provide. Smart buildings pro-vide actionable information about a building or space within a building to allow the building owner or occupant to manage the building or space.
Smart buildings provide the most cost effective approach to the design and the deployment of building technology systems. The traditional way to design and construct a building is to design, install, and operate each system sepa- rately (Multiple proprietary building systems.).
The smart building takes a different approach to designing the systems. Essentially, one designer designs or coordinates the design of all the building
This process reduces the inefficiencies in the design and construction pro- cess saving time and money. During the operation of the building, the build- ing technology systems are integrated horizontally among all subsystems as well as vertically—that is subsystems to facility management systems to busi- ness systems—allowing information and data about the building’s operation to be used by multiple individuals occupying and managing the building (Integrated building systems.).
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