Build resilience through smart technology design

Roneel Singh, WSP’s Director of Technology Systems and Michael Goodman, WSP’s Associate, Smart Buildings and Precincts Discipline Lead, provide insight into the need for ‘smart’ buildings – evolvable places that integrate intelligent design with multiple data inputs and previously disparate systems; aggregating these into a cloud of useful information.

“Technology, though, should be an enabler that enriches our experience and not something that forces a change in the way we do things.

“When harnessed, actionable intelligence allows building owners and occupants to create more engaging and effective built environments. However, it’s not smart if it doesn’t actually deliver something for someone. Smart is not about shiny objects and gadgets, but all about actionable outcomes and holistically encompasses People, Process and Technology.”

For a building to be considered as smart the technology designer needs to firstly understand the experience of individual users of the building and the processes that can be improved, supported or enhanced. The technology is then designed to deliver these core outcomes.

“Every building is a little bit different with a slightly different focus on the building intention whether it be tenant requirements, facilities management or sustainability,” explains Michael. There is no cookie cutter approach to the technology. Outcomes are specific to each development.”

There are several terms currently being used to refer to features of smart buildings and this has made it quite confusing. Smart needs to be defined at the early stages of the development so that it can be clearly presented to the design teams when they are appointed.

Smart is different for each client as it is based on the value they place on each outcome. It is also fundamental that smart is defined differently for each of the building owners, operators, users and tenants.

“The difficulty in delivering a truly smart building is to ensure the benefits for each of these three groups (occupants, tenant, owner) is cohesive and sustained,” adds Michael. “There are some critical factors that can be the difference between success or failure in achieving smart outcomes.

“Historically the Building Management System (BMS) was the most intelligent and automated system within the Building Engineering Systems capability but it was essentially a Mechanical/HVAC control system with the ability to communicate with other systems. Over time the lighting systems, security systems, fire detection and alarm, and the energy management and monitoring systems have not only become intelligent but also started to replicate hardware, software and control interfaces, and data and information that may have traditionally only been available within a BMS.

Roneel says, “The decision to make a building smart should be the result of commercial, social, or operational requirements that have been defined and have measurable outcomes. It is essential that the discovery process for smart” starts off with a human centred design journey at its core no matter who the audience.”

“It’s important to consider how technology may impact the people that use and manage assets, the interaction that these people have within the building and the building systems and the infrastructure required to support and maintain these relationships today and into the future.

“The use of various technologies can significantly impact these relationships. Whether it is the connectivity, interaction between systems, the management and analysis of information or the applications that are used to manage and interact with the building – collectively these elements working together provide a smart building.”

Smart buildings can deliver significant benefits to occupants, managers and owners alike. Occupants expect more engaging spaces that provide greater comfort, security and flexibility; in addition to enabling them to intuitively connect and collaborate with their peers.

“Organisations want to attract and retain the best talent. To ensure their workforce is fully engaged when they are in the building for enhanced productivity, an increased sense of wellbeing and safety in addition to adaptive environments for heighten decision making needs to be provided,” explains Roneel. “But at the same time, tenants want to optimise the amount of space that businesses occupy, and the resources required to operate within the buildings. For owners, investing in the right infrastructure and maximising its lifecycle must be balanced with attracting and retaining premium tenants. The building infrastructure should support the integration with tenant requirements including user experience, integration with tenant business operating systems and optimisation of space and utilities.”

Michael adds, “It’s all about designing the technology into buildings to achieve the desired outcomes.

“However, this needs to be undertaken with a level of priority based on the level of value of each outcome. If each element must be delivered to a 100 per cent outcome level for each user of a building, then it is more desirable to deliver ‘less but better’. However, this can be challenging due to delivery parameters such as time, technology limits, building design and budget. That’s why we recommend picking the high user impact items within an owner’s budget and doing them well.

“That is, to deliver an outcome that is 100 per cent successful for all stakeholders, it is preferable to initiate less complexity in the technology to achieve a better result in provisioning it.”

Smart buildings have a positive impact on all the stakeholders, not just a subset containing some of the users.

“To achieve this, a smart building uses a combination of traditional building services, for instance, building and security management systems, with new and emerging technology such as beacons and mobile apps,” explains Michael.

“The connectors of these disparate systems are a common physical network infrastructure within a building and the ability to connect and consolidate the data from the various systems together onsite or in the cloud; this is often referred to as convergence or platform. Consequently, a clear strategic vision and understanding of the business value are critical when executing a smart building.”

Roneel adds, “Connectivity provides the flexible exchange of information. It’s the insights that the data provides that facilitates the type of experience for people in a building and those that manage and own it.”

Many successful smart building strategies derive their foundations from sustainability objectives. Rating systems such as NABERS, Green Star and LEED (Low Emissions Energy Development), have demonstrated that significant benefits can be realised by owners, managers and occupants.

“Just as ensuring that sustainability objectives are included early in the design stage, the smart building discussion should also happen at this time,” says Michael. “Integrating connectivity up front and designed into the building at the beginning enables cost and delivery difficulties to be minimised as opposed to incurring them later on.

“Buildings with sustainability measures have been shown to improve the asset value, reduce the operating costs and attract talent to the organisations that use these buildings. Most sustainability objectives deliver a greater return on investment from connecting multiple systems together. Building management systems, lighting control systems and energy metering are combined to deliver common data that is analysed and refined to achieve the desired sustainability outcomes. This platform of connected systems and data analysis has led to other opportunities that are now commonly seen in smart buildings.”

Through integrating smart building into the design, building managers can provide tenant experience apps designed for people who are regular users of the building. Examples of this include smart phone enabled access control; room bookings; booking end-of-trip facilities; and booking EV (electric vehicle) charging spots in the carparks. Also, integration with retail outlets, such as providing a cross promotional activity such as giveaways and special pricing for the commercial space users from the co-located retail outlets.

“This type of integration enables an all-encompassing experience for those who are using the building – a ‘one-stop shop’ if you like, for the people whose daily life involves substantial and regular use of the building,” says Michael.

A smart building can also enable a more flexible, seamless experience for building use, such as access cards on mobile phones; numberplate recognition; wayfinding; local public transport information; and integration with back-end operational facilities and actions such as fire alarms, lift outages and breakdowns or accidents in the carpark.

“Through building owners incorporating this into their building design, potential tenants can easily assess how well a building is prepared for connectivity and resilience in terms of future technology and communications changes in infrastructure,” says Roneel. “That also extends to the provision of cyber-security measures and robust infrastructure to support communication and data. Technology can ensure a building is resilient, efficient and sustainable – providing information between systems and services to enable operators to make better decisions on usage.”

 “Well-designed integrated building systems provides significant advantages over traditional siloed infrastructure,” says Michael.

“An integrated network allows multiple systems to connect to the infrastructure independent of the system functionality of a vendor. For this to work successfully, you must have a common backbone network infrastructure.

“As the use of a building changes, the integrated systems within can easily grow and shrink as required with minimum infrastructure cabling required. As technology changes and emerges, the systems can be quickly added to or supplemented using the common network infrastructure.

“In short, smart buildings plan for change through the technology design. This enables a building to be flexible and adaptable for new users,” concludes Roneel.

“The imperative is clear - design for change – through instigating a smart building approach to the overall design so incremental changes in technology can be undertaken as required to meet new needs.

For more information on this subject:

• How Can Smart Transform The Office Experience Post-Covid?
• Smart Buildings, Simplified | WSP Smart Buildings

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