How do we put people at the centre of intelligent building design?
Putting people at the centre when designing buildings of the future is crucial to unlocking the potential of smart building design.
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Buildings of the future is about understanding the drivers that are shaping how we will live and work in years to come, thereby ensuring we design the right things in the right ways.
Inspired by interviews with a broad group of professionals across the built environment who were asked to imagine what Buildings of the Future might look like and how they might be created, Aurecon’s first insights into Buildings of the Future explores four drivers behind the demand for and challenges inherent in reaching Intelligent Building status.
These major drivers (people at the centre, designs that make sense today and tomorrow, easy life: complex technology, and bottom line benefits) have the potential to reshape our industry in the next 30 years. Aurecon is identifying the opportunities this presents and facilitating these changes.
Please enjoy the first installment in the series, 'Buildings of the Future: Science fiction or science fact?' by downloading the full PDF or exploring the report via the key themes below.
Critically, it is not technology that is driving change: it is how people are using Buildings of the Future, supported by technology, robotics, automation, new materials and new approaches to energy creation, use and storage.
Intelligent buildings were already being talked about 30 years ago. There was a nirvana of Intelligent buildings that knew where you sat, which floor you wanted to go to and where lights should come on automatically. It was all possible, but labour intensive and hard to maintain. These days it would be easier, but ironically the workplace design has overtaken it: these days many workers don’t have a defined desk or level to go to.
Technology must have a purpose and remaining focused on the needs and expectations of your tenants and their workforce is key.
Buildings of the Future would also do well to recognise that tomorrow’s employee (particularly millennials) will be mobile. Increasingly, employees will value mobility, flexibility and remote connectivity to work. To support this, we’ll see the continuing rise of collaborative technologies (including virtual and augmented reality), a shift to ‘the cloud’ and changing behaviours shaped by social media and mobile smart devices.
The workforce today is mobile. Tasks have changed and the way we work now is different from the past, and will change again in the future.
In addition, we will also have to consider changes in transportation such as the advent of the autonomous vehicle or even car drones and how building design will accommodate these technologies.
Including facilities for agile working, sitting and standing meeting rooms, creative spaces, coffee shops, couches, training areas, gathering areas as well as standard carrels.
Buildings of the Future will need to cater for connectivity to occupant surroundings, and the needs of the occupants such as crèches.
Tracking staff to better understand the use of space and high traffic office areas will allow for a more agile work environment, drastically reducing inefficiencies in space, energy and workplace design. Buildings will be designed on factual data and decisions based on the mining of valuable data as opposed to ‘experience’.
Knowing where your building occupants are located gives rise to exciting possibilities, including on-demand ventilation, heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC), lighting control, room bookings, emergency evacuation management, rental of space based on time used and greater sharing of spaces. Possible methods of measuring this include WiFi tracking of connected devices, workstation login, card readers, occupancy sensors and beam counters.
Now days, we are looking to control systems reacting to the presence of a person just being in the building, rather than supporting one permanent location. The challenge for those in the building industry will be to respond to the changing requirements of tenants faster than ever before and to ensure our design of Buildings of the Future keep pace.
Increasing mobility leads to the question: do tenants really need a large amount of space all of the time? The rapid rise of the shared economy through companies like Airbnb and Uber are set to become mainstream in the property industry too.
It’s already common for small businesses to share office spaces, seating arrangements, leases, building layout and buildings maintenance, but there is potential to further expand the concept. In future, we might see smaller tenancies, but larger facilities; or end-to-end solutions where services and staff could be shared between environments and companies. If there are ten tasks then there should be flexibility in the space, rather than ten different spaces.
Buildings of the Future will support shared infrastructure and services, and result in better utilisation between companies, tenants and individual users. This approach could work for educational facilities too. For example, new chemistry labs and biology labs could be set up to allow shared workspaces for biologists and chemists.
If end-user behaviour has changed, so has end-user expectation. A future in which a facilities manager is required to provide live feeds about the performance of a tenant’s building isn’t far off. Coupled to this, their environmental expectations have also increased. Today’s tenant is environmentally savvy.
We are seeing a change in tenant demand towards buildings that support good environmental practices and amenities.
Tenants are increasingly interested in the details of shadow plans and their effect on solar energy capture, buildings that can exist off the grid, the provision of energy battery storage technology, developing self-sustaining ecosystems within their Building of the Future and opportunities to share power between buildings.
Buildings don’t exist in isolation of their precinct or their community. Intelligent Buildings of the Future will be integrated and more effectively connect work spaces with living spaces (whether that be physically or virtually).
Importantly, our environmental focus shouldn’t be limited to our single buildings. No building operates in isolation and Buildings of the Future will need to integrate with the broader community. Smart buildings within a smart precinct will be the focus.
In future, innovative city management will form an alliance with major developers to drive smart precincts, and will require the right data, people movement monitoring and legislative frameworks.
Aurecon sees this as a key opportunity for the built environment to develop shared services in facilities management. The first movers will be those who create building maintenance hubs. These hubs will be designed to provide facilities for all local buildings to centrally monitor electricity, water, energy storage common areas and integrate other aspects of maintenance and management of operational efficiencies.
Taken a step further, facilities managers could use lessons learnt from these hubs to more effectively manage groups of buildings and enhance used experience. The use of robotics for security checks and providing controls such as air-conditioning according to a user voting matrix will ensure a greater return on investment for an enhanced focus on people.
The expense of creating one-offs is a barrier. We should follow a ‘flat pack’ approach to design, as we have seen in the car industry. There are rising concerns that built-in technology will be out of date by the time it is constructed or, at least, by the time that a ten-year lease expires. To combat this, designing with flexibility in mind is key.
In future, we may see Buildings of the Future being mass-designed with flexibility in mind. Buildings of the Future will no longer be rigid structures that can’t change: by design, they will adapt and their spaces will be adaptable without significant building modifications.
This could give rise to a greater degree of modular or off-site construction. Printed buildings will be the future within 10 years… You’ll be able to print all sorts of twisted forms. Twenty years ago, if you were to draw the ideas we are seeing today, you would be fired, yet today that’s exactly what the clients want.
Finite usage for Buildings of the Future aside, the engineering industry is also seeing the rise of building contracts which incorporate 50-year design-life clauses. This has significant implications, given the unknown impacts of climate change and increasingly extreme weather incidents.
Technologies addressing this have included incorporating floating buildings that have the ability to generate their own energy, and utilise the local ecosystem to cool and heat given finite energy resources.
In future, we’ll see the increasing incorporation of underground facilities to utilise ground source heating and cooling, and the ability to generate, store and share energy through integrated systems. In addition, our definition of sustainability may change, and with the emergence of the shared economy, shift to what it means to be an active contributor to sustainable practices.
It ought to be possible to design buildings with some type of backbone in them that allows the building to be changed in the future. The question is what needs to be put into it, and what is the cost of providing the ability to change it in the future?
Aurecon sees opportunity for buildings to be business enablers, not barriers. Business environments change rapidly and our buildings need to respond quickly and efficiently. In future, buildings will be designed to be simple to use and user-managed. Walls will move easily and essential engineering services will be ‘plug and play’ to allow for easy change and integration. Buildings will be a combination of ‘flat pack furniture’ (easy assembly) meets ‘the car industry’ (mass production of parts). Imagine what we can create!
A ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to Buildings of the Future is becoming less and less palatable. The use of new, flexible construction materials, including composite materials, additive manufacturing concrete, solar polymers and carbon fibre balsa, is fuelling new design approaches. These options are unlocking the architectural limitations of size, weight and shape that the building and construction industry works within today. To bring this to life, our thought processes and methods will have to evolve.
One of the biggest disruptors to the design engineering industry is that of new 3D printing technology. The 3D printer is significantly disrupting the traditional design role held by the structural engineer, but at the same time, presents exciting new opportunities in how building designers create, relocate and shape Buildings of the Future.
3D printing offers ways to implement almost instant prototypes. The European Space Agency is using 3D printing to address the challenges of transporting materials to the moon to construct lunar habitations. Their study is investigating the use of lunar soil, known as regolith, as building matter. Layers of regolith are expected to be built up over the building on the moon by a robot-operated 3D printer.
In addition, the ability of robotics to simplify and automate a diverse range of tasks is also set to revolutionise Buildings of the Future.
Within the construction industry, robots are now available to lay pavers and bricks; and drones provide new surveying and security opportunities and are used to construct sculptures and houses. Right now, Japan is reverting to robotics to provide basic services in aged care homes to solve the dearth of care workers.
While the rate of uptake of robotics isn’t certain, one thing is: those working on buildings in future will need to maintain an appetite for new and advanced technology, materials and methodologies if they want to stay relevant.
We must continue to explore design opportunities for emerging technologies, and prototypes such as this are vital to a mature design approach.
The ultimate goal for technology is that the facilities management of the Building of the Future will self-manage, learn, anticipate, adapt and enhance: without the users being aware of it.
In future, it will be called upon to fulfill multiple roles, including that of smart device; concierge and scholar. In addition, technology such as robotics and 3D printing will revolutionise both how and what we build with.
I don’t consider it a success if people are talking about the technology, not how they feel.
Taken a step further, the Building Internet of Things (BIoT), or developing a building as a smart device able to transmit and receive data for the use and management of buildings, is a hot topic.
In the near future, the BIoT will involve an app with IP-based interface, which connects all sensors and equipment to a main backbone Building Management System that proactively optimises the operation of the building, including:
In future, open software architecture and open protocol language will make our buildings ‘hackable’! If you talk about the attributes of the new age building, I think it is the full integration of systems: that is a really exciting piece.
Critically, the data our Buildings of the Future collect have the potential for far more than just facilities management.
In many airports, it’s no longer necessary to stand in a queue to check in and people are expecting the same kind of easy, technology-driven check-ins at hotels. Thanks to technology, a guest’s name can be displayed on the welcome desk at a digital check-in station; their food preferences or past purchases displayed in a digital room-service order system; and TV, movies and music provided on demand.
This ‘concierge in your pocket’ concept is fast gaining popularity and also allows operators to include useful information such as surrounding entertainment venues; medical facilities; and similar services.
Beyond its influence on building management, some believe that the ultimate win would be technology that can self-manage, learn, anticipate, adapt and enhance, or at least tell you when there is a problem.
We might soon see ‘intuitive’ buildings emerge and the integration of artificial intelligence. Within this reality, a building facade ‘intuitively’ reacts when shadows are cast across it and adjusts its shades and solar panels accordingly.
I want the building to know me; my preferences, my habits, my behaviours and respond to them.
Taken a step further, data analytics systems are increasingly being utilised to analyse occupation, space utilisation and energy consumption, and these learnings will continue to be applied to a wide range of diverse applications.
Buildings of the Future will increasingly use data analytics to automatically deliver improvements in efficiency.
Aurecon understands that while the rate of uptake of robotics isn’t certain, one thing is: those working on Buildings of the Future will need to maintain an appetite for new and advanced technology, materials and methodologies if they want to stay relevant.
A centralised industry portal to share and purchase solutions and information within a global community may not be as out of reach as it initially appears. This could include a “Buildings of the Future” app store which complies with industry standard measures and sells bespoke apps or tools to build your own app, supported by your local IP precinct hub with access to IT, economic and data analytics advice. This would allow for entire precincts and cities to share and collaborate rather than operate in isolation.
We will also have to consider the influence of leapfrog technologies such as blockchain and cryptocurrencies which will make self-executing contracts possible. Facilities will, in effect, not only be run smarter, but run themselves. Public ledgers will bring greater transparency to supply chain records and the possibility of intelligent building parts will connect the physical and digital worlds.
Although we cannot predict the future, we’ll need to stay one step ahead of these game changing technologies with a ‘leapfrog’ mindset.
The use of technology to manage facilities is a key enabler of improved maintenance efficiency through real-time monitoring from remote locations. In the near future, apps will be used to monitor and analyse data and will aid the more effective management of services such as air conditioning and water management.
Critically, we are going to have to upskill facilities managers to take full advantage of the innovations in Buildings of the Future. Put plainly: there is no point in developing fancy technology if no one can or wants to use it.
You can design and build a building really well but it can be let down if the operator doesn’t know how to use it to the fullest.
Efficiencies in operations, building practices and response to climate change are at the heart of innovation in the building of the future. To solve the investment conundrum, we will need to focus on improving the tools we use to calculate the cost-value equation.
We’ll need to develop better metrics to support the business case for Buildings of the Future, and take advantage of government incentives to foster innovation in this field.
Aurecon sees this as a key opportunity for the built environment to institute more specific measurement standards.
These standards would carefully analyse the returns on investment from Buildings of the Future, including their achievement of occupant wellness, connection to local community, energy being delivered to the right place at the right time, as well as the integration of appropriate technology and new materials. Establishing these standards will require an ahistorical level of collaboration between innovative executives, HR and buildings professionals.
If the future is created by those who forge it, we need to evaluate where it is we want to be, and find more definite ways of measuring our progress.
We realise we have raised more questions than answers.
It may be counterintuitive, but we believe that therein lies the pathway forward. Those who shape Buildings of the Future will be those who, firstly, realise that our world is changing and have the boldness to not only let go of but question the status quo so that working with government and economic leaders, we might reimagine our physical spaces and infrastructure. Engineers need to lead these conversations.
With science fiction becoming science fact, it’s time to embrace radical change.
Client Director, Clients & Growth
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