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Introduction

Smart buildings are becoming more common worldwide. The space has experienced one of the most remarkable transitions in the last few years alone – from being an experimental concept into one of the most widely discussed and adopted construction trends. A decade ago, constructing a smart building was seen as a luxury that only organizations with deep pockets could afford. Not any longer!

The smart building of today – what’s in for the tenants?

Fast forward to today, a smart building is a proud symbol of sustainable development. Workplaces based around sustainable buildings are a critical enabler of any business’s convenience goals as well as symbols of their commitment to save the planet’s resources for future generations. For reference, 28% of all global energy emissions are estimated to be generated by buildings and activities involved in their construction. With the technology for smart buildings available today, this huge emission challenge can be addressed significantly.

From a tenant experience perspective, smart buildings offer several possibilities like

  • Better energy utilization with intelligent power management systems that improve efficiency and reduce wastage considerably.
  • Personalized experiences derived from occupancy and usage data of each tenant in the building.
  • Smart infrastructure management with integrated controls for maximum flexibility and ease of usage
  • Enhanced security with integrated technologies for audio, visual surveillance, and access control in addition to perimeter and network security.

4 Emerging Trends in Smart Buildings to Look Forward To

While the foundation of smart building construction remains focused on integrating hardware and software technology into the mechanical structure of buildings. However, the type of technology used has evolved significantly over the years. From basic sensors to AI-powered intelligence, today’s smart buildings deliver a wide range of innovative experiences to tenants while simultaneously reducing environmental impacts such as pollution, waste generation, energy wastage, and resource depletion.
On this note, let us explore four emerging trends in smart buildings that businesses should be aware of and adopt for better returns on their real estate investments:

1. Artificial Intelligence

AI is poised to bring transformational change to the world of smart buildings. While smart buildings already leverage tech that manages environments according to occupant preferences and energy mandates, AI can bring a new dimension of possibilities to the same. For example, AI can revolutionize HVAC systems by intelligently optimizing HVAC systems based on data acquired from the building and HVAC equipment.

By crunching this data along with occupancy insights across the building, i AI can help in smart auto-scheduling of chillers and HVAC equipment based on consumption patterns. This can greatly enhance cost efficiency by eliminating wastage and ensuring that the building is well-ventilated with minimal wastage of power.  Similarly, the lighting needs of a smart building can be optimized by AI systems by understanding the exact demand in each area of occupancy and autonomously maintaining the right lighting experience and lighting equipment to minimize costs and increase the longevity of lighting infrastructure. Additionally, AI systems can operate as a central component of building security by autonomously detecting anomalies within the building premises by proactively inspecting visual feeds of security cameras and intrusion signals from safety sensors across the landscape.

2. Digital Twins

With connected IoT sensors pulling in data from across a smart building, it becomes easier for tenants or building operators to rapidly model a digital 3D twin copy. This 3D twin can serve as a research and prototyping engine for testing out new processes, technologies, workflows, architectural or engineering modifications, etc. For example, maintenance operations within the building can be streamlined using a 3D twin wherein technicians are provided an accurate representation of the faulty areas like HVAC systems, electrical circuit issues, etc.

The 3D digital twin can help electrical engineers visualize a spatial 3D model of the building’s electrical circuitry and wiring infrastructure to accurately pinpoint work areas such as wiring sections that need to be replaced, potential impact zones of a short-circuit-related incident, etc.  The digital twin will exhibit the same dynamics as the original building thereby helping engineers understand the impact of changes without performing them on the real building. This saves time, effort, and money while at the same time eliminating risks by ensuring that any upgrade or change in the building is first tested for validation on the digital twin.

3. Integrated Smart Buildings

We have seen how different trends like AI, 3D digital twins, etc. offer new possibilities for building owners and facility managers to manage a smart building. However, one of the biggest challenges they face is to have a single point of control over all facets of the building such as security, operations, maintenance, etc. This is where integrated smart buildings can prove to be a major life-saver.

Smart buildings offer a centralized control hub or dashboard that gathers and crunches together data from across different parts of the building. The dashboard offers seamless digital controls over all operational aspects of the building ranging from perimeter security and parking management to HVAC and water supply management. By using 3D digital twins, the entire operational characteristics of a building can be studied including its energy consumption patterns, emissions, occupancy patterns, etc. The data acquired can be used to model new improvement strategies that can target zero-emissions by minimizing consumption or by replacing components with alternative safe options, etc. Reducing carbon footprint is today considered a pivotal strategy by businesses to champion their overall sustainability goals. Using 3D digital twins, it becomes easier for building administrators to plan occupancy charts for different zones in the building and see how minor adjustments can help reducing parking needs, energy for cooling or heating, enable better waste management, etc. These insights can be used to help tenants such as corporate companies to plan their employee schedules.

4. Edge Computing

With more sensors and powerful computing requirements becoming a mainstay in smart buildings, traditional centralized cloud-based infrastructure may not provide adequate computing power on demand. What smart buildings will eventually need is to embrace the trend of edge computing. By bringing digital cores closer to the consumption hotspot, smart buildings get adequate computing resources as a dedicated and strategic enabler. This helps in implementing other high-end tech innovations like AI, machine learning, etc. with ease as the relevant computing infrastructure with custom configurations and environments can be easily made available at a nearby edge node. It improves performance and reduces latency.

Smart buildings will be the future of construction

There is no doubt that the future of real estate, be it commercial or residential or any other category will by default be smart buildings. The amount of flexibility, control, and personalization options that smart buildings provide will be too good for any building owner or operator to ignore.

The outcomes are plenty, from streamlining energy consumption to improving tenant wellness with optimal HVAC controls. However, smart buildings also require more R&D, development roadmaps, and execution oversight than traditional building tech initiatives. Gaining such expertise with in-house staff may be a very futile attempt as the learning curve will be huge and have high-risk failure potential. Such a tricky situation can be resolved if building owners strike a technology partnership with a trusted digital partner like Pratiti.

Get in touch with us to learn how our expert smart building consultants can guide you with end-to-end design, strategy, implementation roadmap, and execution oversight. Over the years, we have delivered memorable digital experiences to global businesses, and this will be an opportunity to bring the same level of expertise to the construction industry as a whole. 

Nitin
Nitin Tappe

After successful stint in a corporate role, Nitin is back to what he enjoys most – conceptualizing new software solutions to solve business problems. Nitin is a postgraduate from IIT, Mumbai, India and in his 24 years of career, has played key roles in building a desktop as well as enterprise solutions right from idealization to launch which are adopted by many Fortune 500 companies. As a Founder member of Pratiti Technologies, he is committed to applying his management learning as well as the passion for building new solutions to realize your innovation with certainty.

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