SMART

Have you ever wondered how a building could work better for you? Wished for a consistent office temperature, wondered why a stadium restroom hasn’t been cleaned even though its highly trafficked, or thought, “there’s more I could be doing with my time,” during the endless wait before a routine healthcare visit?

Questions like these made us wonder, what if our buildings were better able to meet our needs? What if we could choose workspaces based on the temperature? What if we could easily track the most-used areas in a stadium, so maintenance staff could address the highest need? What if digital tracking systems in hospitals let you roam freely nearby, and sent an alert and wayfinding information when your provider was ready for you?

Smart concepts make it possible. Our approach – ThinkBOLD&R – makes it reality. 

We’re advising clients on a future where occupants are more involved with their buildings. Building users are increasingly expecting the level of convenience and control offered by their smart homes when in public.

To deliver environments that meet these changing expectations, buildings must respond to data, think holistically and promote a community environment. At WSP, we help clients formulate and prioritize goals for employee health and well-being, space utilization and user control. Recently, our advice in these areas helped inform a building system design that was focused on occupant satisfaction, rather than just meeting engineering demands, for a global technology company.

Information is vital in emergency situations. Knowing who’s in the building and where they are helps first responders react quickly and appropriately. SMART systems allow two-way communication of vital information, pushing mass alerts to building occupants and allowing data to be shared back to the building and first responders.

We also help our clients keep their buildings safe during the day-to-day. SMART systems can simplify access control, help guests find their way and restrict them from certain areas, and monitor key security systems, helping stop emergencies before they happen.

Buildings have long collected siloed data and used systems which cannot communicate. A SMART building integrates data across systems, increasing operational efficiency and simplifying experience.

Menial tasks like conference room reservations speed up, and time lost due to “zombie bookings” are avoided. Temperature, noise and light levels can be observed in various zones, allowing users to select the most comfortable environment.

In a U.S. office of a global management consulting firm, we developed a SMART strategy that helped the firm get better information on how their employees were utilizing their space. With many employees embedded in client offices, it was essential that they know how many employees were actually using their offices in order to better plan utilization and capacity of space. We proposed a solution which enabled the firm to understand both real-time and historical data to inform their decisions.

Our SMART consultants help owners and occupants make sense of the information collected from their buildings and identify strategies to capitalize on it – for instance, implementing SMART systems which identify unused parking spaces and sell them to the public at hourly or daily rates through applications, or allowing unused venue spaces to be reserved for a fee.

Our ThinkBOLD&R Center is a user-aware environment that collects data from many sources that can then be harvested, combined, analyzed and applied to inform decision making for engineers and clients.

Through our experience, we have identified key performance indicators to evaluate community building, employee wellness, space utilization and corporate social responsibility relative to the success of implementing smart building systems, measured against human experience expectations.

At the start of every smart building project, WSP holds a visioning session to outline goals. This culminates with identification of systems and the development of a smart building strategy that goes beyond gathering data to the ways clients will turn it into analytics and business intelligence.

While other consultants’ work ends when design begins, we offer the engineering and design expertise to put the building strategy we develop to work. From integrating heating and cooling, sunshades and plumbing fixtures with sensor systems to designing the IT infrastructure to make it all happen, WSP can bring SMART systems from concept to reality.