Smart Building Architecture and Use Cases

Smart buildings today are not designed from the top down; rather, they are assembled from the bottom up. This is because IoT smart building systems are independently designed and implemented separately from each other. To achieve true smart building benefits, a top-down approach is needed to ensure all IoT systems work together.

In this chapter, we will begin by learning about what components comprise smart building architecture. We will quickly discover the challenges in developing the architecture and why some believe that it may never truly be implemented. Most initiatives are currently centered around solving specific issues, such as indoor air quality (IAQ), smart restrooms, and energy efficiency. One exception, however, is the Sinclair Hotel PoE building transformation, which will be discussed in this chapter. We will review use cases around each of the preceding issues that smart building architecture aims to solve.

In this chapter...

Smart building architecture to pull components together

Existing buildings, and even buildings under design and construction today, consist of independently designed and implemented building systems. The HVAC system is separate from the security system, the lighting system is completely separate from the water system, and so on. Each of these systems is designed, deployed, and even maintained by different engineering and maintenance disciplines with little to no cross-over between trades.

Each discipline competes for capital resources to acquire the latest and greatest technology, but often, each is value-engineered (an approach to get to the lowest cost possible) down to the basic requirements. Because of this, we can say that smart buildings are essentially designed from the bottom up, system by system, resulting in a collection of systems trying to communicate with each other.

If we are to achieve all the benefits a truly smart building has to offer, we need to approach it...

Smart building architecture challenges

Unfortunately, the development of a common architecture is slow, and many believe there may never be an over-arching single architecture for smart buildings. Integration capabilities are an essential part of any smart building project and many solutions currently do not offer the required integration capabilities.

Let’s understand some of the challenges in building a smart building architecture:

• Different communication protocols: Electrical, plumbing, and mechanical systems are designed to stand alone without the thought of integration. This results in different communication protocols being used, with most of them being proprietary to the individual manufacturers. It also results in multiple computing and controlling systems, each requiring different skill sets to maintain and support.

While each system can collect data, it is not able to share this data with other systems. An open IoT software platform is needed to pull...

Use case – IAQ monitoring

“The most common way COVID-19 is transmitted from one person to another is through tiny airborne particles of the virus hanging in indoor air for minutes or hours after an infected person has been there,” said Alondra Nelson, head of the White House Office of Science and Air. As well as COVID-19, nearly every virus is transmitted through the air, and building owners and operators are now realizing that IAQ monitoring is a long-term investment.

A Facilities Net article by Dave Lubach published on May 2 2022 titled Occupants Unhappy with Return-to-Work Health and Safety Measures: Survey indicated “employees are still concerned with returning to buildings that are free of germ-causing agents on surfaces and include less-than-clean air.”

As workers return to their offices post-pandemic, building owners and operators are faced with the challenge of assuring these occupants that their buildings are clean and safe. In addition...

Use case – smart IoT-connected restrooms

Auto-flush toilets, touch-free paper towel dispensers, and auto-on-off water faucet restroom solutions have been in place for years. The pandemic has greatly increased hygiene expectations and the proliferation of IoT devices has increased the range of touchless devices and smart data-driven solutions available. On average, individuals will visit the restroom three to four times per day, touching many of the commonly used surfaces, greatly increasing the chances of virus transmission.

According to a recent Kimberly-Clark Professional survey, 80% of workers feel that the restroom is one of the most important areas requiring better hygiene levels. Mark Caskey, CEO of JLL’s EMEA Corporate Solutions business, stated, “Employee health and workplace hygiene are, without a doubt, the top considerations for companies re-entering the workplace,” and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stated, “hand...

Use case – PoE at the Sinclair Hotel

I toured the Sinclair Hotel and met with Sinclair Holdings’ president and developer, Farukh Aslam, while it was transforming to become one of the smartest buildings in the world. Now open, this massive undertaking is the first of its kind using PoE to power everything, and it is the first building in the world to power itself.

Built in 1929 in Fort Worth, Texas, US, this 17-story building originally served as the corporate headquarters for Sinclair Oil and later transformed into the Sinclair Hotel with 164 rooms. Located in the Art Deco district and needing a major renovation, the developers and owners of this 90-year-old building wanted to retain its unique facade and art deco interior, while making it ecologically sound.

Farukh and his team installed PoE technology and redesigned traditional equipment to run on low voltage to power lights, shades, curtains, windows, smart mirrors, hairdryers, minibars, TVs, AC units, exercise...

Use case – energy reduction at an Australian shopping mall

A leading investor in the Asia-Pacific region has built their portfolio of buildings with a heavy focus on environmental, ecological, and sustainable goals. Their latest project involved finding ways to reduce carbon emissions and eliminate unnecessary operating costs at their 215,800-square-foot shopping mall in Australia. Of course, they also wanted to improve the visitor experience.

BrainBox AI, a Montreal-based company, was brought in to use their predictive and self-adapting AI algorithms to optimize the HVAC system. They developed a custom driver for the Tridium (a leading IoT software provider) Niagara Framework to connect to the HVAC system. Using custom-curated algorithms, AI, and cloud computing, they were able to pull down a few weeks of actual data from the system.

After an AI learning period, building analysis, and data mapping activities, BrainBox AI developed a unique strategy for the building. They...

Cybersecurity for smart buildings

As buildings become more connected, they are more vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Cyber-attacks continue to rise year on year and infrastructure is a common target. An attack can have devasting consequences, from exposing sensitive information and shutting down or disrupting critical building services to compromising occupant safety. The estimated average costs of a data breach are 4.24 million USD. Ransomware attacks can create safety issues as hackers disable locks, alarms, elevators, and other critical building controls to prevent people from exiting or entering the building.

Buildings are an attractive target since they are often not well protected and have critical control systems. They often contain other non-building-related IT databases and systems. In an earlier chapter, we highlighted that the Target store data breach a few years back resulted from hackers entering their confidential database through the HVAC system vendor’s portal...

Summary

Smart building architecture is needed to connect all the various building systems in one platform. While there are many challenges to implementing this, proper planning and attention to a top-down approach can resolve these. We provided four IoT smart building use cases, each demonstrating the application of the IoT device technologies, communication protocols, connectivity, computing, and data management components discussed in the previous chapters, now all pulled together to deliver real results. Connecting all these building systems requires a major focus on cybersecurity from the start.

This chapter demonstrated how to pull these components together to develop smart building applications. In the next chapter, we will explain digital virtual representation and digital twins.