Smart buildings: How to know whether a client really wants a smart building
Wednesday, March 27, 2024
A smart building is broadly defined as a building that delivers valuable services that make occupants productive at the lowest cost and environmental impact over the building’s life cycle. Simply put, the technology enables efficient use of the building’s resources. But how does a consulting engineer design this?
Smart buildings, smart cities, intelligent places or connected venues are all terms the industry is using to describe this new way of thinking about how users consume the built environment. While a definition of what makes a facility a smart building is not yet agreed upon, a broad statement of goals and outcomes could include:
- A smart building leverages secure technology to improve the quality of experience, and provides users contextually relevant information to inform their actions in real time.
- A smart building provides solutions that bring added business value through data analytics informing organizational decision making.
Learning objectives:
- Learn about the client’s business goals and develop metrics that can be used to show progress toward or compliance with them.
- Understand the foundational infrastructure pieces required to support integrated building systems.
- Identify the main criteria for system selection in smart buildings. Consider the cybersecurity of such systems.
- Review examples of smart, integrated building design.