neirfy/iStock/Thinkstock
Ecmweb 17826 Smart Buildings Pr 2
Ecmweb 17826 Smart Buildings Pr 2
Ecmweb 17826 Smart Buildings Pr 2
Ecmweb 17826 Smart Buildings Pr 2
Ecmweb 17826 Smart Buildings Pr 2

How Smart Buildings Can Actually Grow Dumber

Jan. 23, 2018
Reality may not be keeping up with the rhetoric on intelligent buildings. Here’s a look at why many structures fall short of expectations.

Intelligence, while mostly a gift from nature, can’t be sustained at a high level without regular nourishment and cultivation, and the edge it provides is susceptible to erosion. The same dynamic is in play with facilities brimming with integrated MEP systems and control/diagnostic technologies that are building blocks for performance-enhancing building-level intelligence.

Smart buildings — enabled to operate at some level of autonomy or informed control based on the continuous interplay of high-level information technology tools and sensor-equipped, integrated, interconnected systems — require inspired design, regular oversight, and consistent exercise to truly perform. Without that, building intelligence can wither.

If IQ tests could be administered today to buildings that aspired to be smart, they’d likely expose numerous underachievers. They’d reveal structures falling short of ambitious operational improvement goals for functions like systems automation, data collection, monitoring and analysis, sensor-based systems diagnostics and controls, and energy efficiency, all of which are heavily reliant on complex electrical systems working alongside building mechanical and IT systems.

“You may have started with the right vision, but then moved ahead in a different manner, deviating so much that even though there was good intent, the process broke down, and you don’t have the optimal delivery you expected,” says Konkana Khaund, a smart buildings expert with the Frost & Sullivan consultancy who is also the lead researcher on a forthcoming “Intelligent Buildings: Design & Implementation” study for Continental Automated Buildings Association (CABA) that dissects the reasons so many smart buildings are disappointing to some degree.

While moving well on from the “dumb” buildings of yesteryear, neither are many the hyper-automated, super-efficient, quick-learning marvels that were supposed to spring to life from the ambitious BIM drawings put together by design teams. Underperformance is all too common, says Tim Kuhlman, P.E. and associate principal at Oakland, Calif.-based TEECOM, a building technologies integrator, partly because smart buildings are still evolving and lack clear standards.

“They’re designed one way, but often end up getting built another way,” he says, maybe because “you lose control of the construction process, find out parts you ‘spec’d’ aren’t available or compatible with others, or someone made a decision to substitute to bring down costs. So, what’s possible and what’s reality can be two different things.”

The disconnect? Often a systems infrastructure that wasn’t designed for the messy real world, one in which humans still crave control, remain wary of machine intelligence, and easily fall back into old habits. Or, take your pick from these scenarios: a design that’s not easily adaptable to evolving technology; a budget-constrained system that hit the ground without being road tested; a client not fully familiar or comfortable with system functionality, operations, or capabilities; or confusion about the definition of a smart building. Whatever the cause, despite glowing rhetoric, smart buildings may not be making the jump from theory to actual practice in sufficient number, and there’s work to do across the board to fully deliver on their promise.

Engaging the user

One place to start, experts seem to agree, is better aligning systems with the needs and capabilities of the end-user — from building owners and tenants to facility operations and IT staff. Far too often, clients either aren’t brought into the design process upfront, or their involvement wanes over time as they cede oversight to teams of solutions providers and vendors. At the end of the process, the risk of owners taking possession of a complex building controls system they don’t sufficiently understand can be high.

Kevin Rossi, a project engineer with Redwood Electric Group, Inc., a Santa Clara, Calif., contractor that integrates sensor-equipped connected LED lighting into smart building projects, has seen situations where clients aren’t consulted adequately or avoid getting deeply involved. They’re handed solutions they’ve sunk money into but may not be ready, willing, or able to utilize, which can lead to building operations people disconnecting, bypassing, or overriding core system capabilities.

“Many times, there’s a disconnect on the handoff,” he says. “The building will have ‘x’ capabilities, such as data-collecting light fixtures, but the facility manager may or may not know what they can do. It really depends on how much ownership the facility manager takes and whether they’re truly interested in doing something with that. In many cases, at some point in the process, the primary concern starts to become, ‘can we move in on time?’ rather than ‘are we set up to get room occupancy information from the lighting system?’”

Steady advances in technology — of late the Internet of Things and its promise of taking building device sensor deployment to new levels, for instance — can lend irresistible sexiness to smart building projects. And that can be a selling point to decision makers who control the purse strings and fancy themselves being on smart buildings’ cutting edge. But the impact is usually felt farther down the chain, among facility operations personnel and building users and tenants. To the extent they’re not engaged in the planning process, a smart building system can grow dumber over time.

“The disconnect we often see is that we’re dealing with the higher-level facility people, but it’s the building occupants — the ones who will use the features — haven’t really been talked to,” says Kevin Rettich, vice president and buildings discipline leader with Stantec Consulting Services, an engineering consultancy. “They haven’t been asked how they want their HVAC controls set up, or they may not be aware of all the zones that will be set up with lighting controls.”

Handed an ever-growing list of smart features, such as lighting color temperature control, plug load controls, and sub-metering, which can be mandated and governed by energy codes that come into play for zero net energy (ZNE) buildings, building operators risk being overwhelmed with operational complexities, Rettich says. If that happens, the temptation to backtrack can build, particularly if users voice frustration with operational challenges, and workarounds start looking easier than finding and fixing problems.

“There’s often frustration that they can’t go in and easily correct things, and they have to call in a product rep or programmer to troubleshoot and find whether it’s a sensor, a programming issue, or the fixture itself,” says Rettich. “We discover after the fact that there’s some frustration that systems can’t be easily tweaked, so they go back to the old mechanical ways of doing things.”

Complexity’s lure

Sometimes, smart buildings systems prove just too complex. They may work reliably, especially if users are deeply engaged and motivated, but if systems aren’t solving tangible problems or prove too demanding, the risk of overkill and eventual underutilization rises. But with so much technology at designers’ fingertips, the temptation to layer in more functionality can trump practicality, says Alexi Miller, lead engineer at New Buildings Institute, a non-profit that works to promote building efficiency. As smart building knowledge grows, Miller, who’s closely studied ZNE building control systems, hopes for a reconsideration of that approach.

“It’s important for designers to keep it simple and focus on passive systems first and then integrate active controls,” he says. “Design for off, because the most efficient system is one that’s not running.”

A common and growing source of utilization challenges with smart buildings technologies is data proliferation. As building systems grow more capable — and prescriptive codes for energy-efficient buildings demand more monitoring — data overload may be a growing problem.

Collection and dissemination of data from building systems is central to smart building operation, but it’s hollow on its own, says Sanjyot Bhusari, intelligent buildings practice leader at Affiliated Engineers, Inc.’s, Gainesville, Fla., offices. A coming challenge for smart building designs will be to ensure that an expected flood of more operational data has context, he says, and more broadly, that the smart building technology that produces it isn’t seen as a panacea.

“Technology by itself is not a product and not a silver bullet,” he explains, “but when we talk to clients, a lot of them see it that way. One of the problems is that it’s never set up in a simple manner where they can use it to solve problems.”

Bhusari cites examples of variable-frequency drives (VFDs) for building MEP equipment, a common energy-efficiency tool in smart buildings, as well as connected lighting control systems. They’re both becoming more sophisticated and interconnected, and, in turn, set up to produce data. That can have value, he says, but often the essential questions of why it’s needed and how it can be utilized aren’t answered — or sometimes even asked.

“You can have a screen that displays all of that data, but facility managers aren’t going to have time to figure all of that out,” he says. “But VFD data can be set up with predictive algorithms to provide information, and it can be plotted on graphs to see how energy was used. So, you need intelligence to interpret what the data is saying.”

Flood of technology

 The need to ensure smart building data is transformed into information is only likely to increase. Advanced building monitoring and control technologies that could yield troves of new data for users continue to hit the market, and so it’s likely more product and service vendors will be vying for a seat at design tables.

Vetting, translating, and incorporating new and improved technologies into smart building designs will fall to teams that are becoming more heterogeneous and perhaps siloed, and at some risk for miscommunication and internal conflict. Combine that with clients who may sit well behind the technology curve and be at the mercy of the smoothest-talking vendors, and the risks rise for the delivery of suboptimal solutions.

Frost & Sullivan’s coming CABA report takes dead aim on that issue, seeing a convergence of runaway technology, an acute lack of design-phase coordination and a stubbornly transactional process that works at cross purposes to good design as blocking smart buildings’ full potential.

“Smart buildings are getting new technologies offloaded every year, even every quarter now,” says Khaund. “There’s a world of new technologies being created, but many of the designs will not prove flexible or scalable enough, and they could undergo a change six months on.”

The pace of technological change becomes even more problematic for smart building clients who are stuck in traditional operating modes, she says. Facility owners and managers often place too much power in the hands of general contractors that aren’t accustomed to working with technology contractors, a problem because “these are very IT-centric buildings, but they’re still used to working with suppliers of physical building systems.”

While over-design is an ever-present danger with smart buildings, there’s also the mirror risk of corners being cut. When value engineering is deployed, designs can end up being gutted to the point that installed systems lack important functionalities. That’s a notable danger in ground-up smart building projects, as opposed to retrofits, in which many other physical building elements are vying for a share of the budget.

Jason Gladney, vice president of national operations for Envise, a building technology consultancy in Garden Grove, Calif., says fixation on “first costs” is a threat to many smart building designs.

“Often it depends on the owner’s goal,” he says, “and if it’s to flip the building, first cost is more of a worry. It may not end up as smart as it can be, and budget constraints leave a lot of things designed out.”

A better process

With smart building outcomes so dicey, the surest path way to success may be a thoughtful, well-designed process. For ESD Global, a Chicago-based consulting engineer for high-performance buildings, integrated project delivery (IPD) is the answer. With its emphasis on collaboration and continuity, IPD is well-suited to projects with many parties, complex designs and multiple embedded, interconnected systems, says David Clute, ESD intelligent building practice vice president.

“Intelligent buildings have infinitely more data to manage, especially meta data that’s produced with 3D BIM models in use,” Clute says. “IPD gets the whole team onboard at the beginning and on the same page.”

A by-product of both IPD and a similarly structured agile software development process is a planned mobile app for a smart building ESD is helping bring online in downtown Chicago. The app will make it easy for tenants, building engineering, operations and maintenance staff, and even visitors to interact and communicate on various levels with the facility’s intelligent building platform. In a sense, the app is a metaphor for the collaboration that went into the project, and the need to put users at the center of design decisions.

“That forced us to get closer to other companies involved in the building design process,” Clute says.

Though lacking a consensus definition in a world of changing technology, the smart building is clearly the vision for both new structures and those due for a face-lift. But just how truly capable those buildings will be and how much of a return on investment will be realized may be the central question hanging over the smart building revolution. Good outcomes will ride on a mix of clear-headed analysis of needs and capabilities, strong collaboration, and a determination to put solving problems ahead of fashioning a technology showcase.

“Communication between those designing and specifying systems and building owners, asking what’s important, and understanding how the building will be operated are vital,” says Kuhlman. “If you don’t have that, it’s like operating a Prius with only 15 pounds of pressure in the tires. You’re going to lose all of that technology.”          

Zind is a freelance writer based in Lees Summit, Mo. He can be reached at [email protected].

SIDEBAR: Using Commissioning to Get Smart Buildings Back in Line

As smart buildings grow more complex and risks to sustained operational integrity mount, demand for more comprehensive building commissioning services could spike. Not only might traditional initial commissioning become more routine, but even new smart buildings could become candidates for quicker follow-up looks via retro-commissioning. And, in some cases, an even newer take on the approach — ongoing monitoring-based commissioning — might be warranted.

Multiple vulnerabilities — sheer complexity, human intervention, and changing technology among them — almost mandate a process of putting smart building systems through the paces, at least at the outset, but maybe even routinely.

“As technology continues to develop what used to be a strong link when the system was designed is a weak link a few years after the building is commissioned,” says Tim Kuhlman, associate principal at Oakland, Calif.-based TEECOM, a building technologies integrator, fingering everything from controls, intelligent devices and data transmission components to building tenants, building purpose and facility operations staff as potential culprits. “If all the components are not aligned or kept current, the building will not appear to be intelligent.”

Competent commissioning experts, skilled in assessing systems as designed and installed, currently operated and in the context of future needs, are almost certain to come into the smart buildings picture more often and more frequently, says Kevin Rettich, vice president and buildings discipline leader with Stantec Consulting Services, an engineering consulting firm.

“We’re seeing callbacks on things like lighting controls not operating as designed or anticipated sometimes six months or a year later,” he says. “There’s a real need for another set of eyes looking at operations outside of design.”

But commissioning service providers may still face some pushback. Building owners are often wary of funding the service, Rettich says, and there’s still a mind-set of “when the controls vendor comes out to do the startup, then everything’s done.”

Meanwhile, the face of systems commissioning could be slowly changing. Historically, says Rettich, 70% of commissioning has been focused on building HVAC systems. Now, as electrical systems become more central to smart building operations, they could begin to account for more than their current 30% share, and propel demand for commissioning.

About the Author

Tom Zind | Freelance Writer

Zind is a freelance writer based in Lee’s Summit, Mo. He can be reached at [email protected].

Voice your opinion!

To join the conversation, and become an exclusive member of EC&M, create an account today!

Sponsored Recommendations

Electrical Conduit Comparison Chart

CHAMPION FIBERGLASS electrical conduit is a lightweight, durable option that provides lasting savings when compared to other materials. Compare electrical conduit types including...

Fiberglass Electrical Conduit Chemical Resistance Chart

This information is provided solely as a guide since it is impossible to anticipate all individual site conditions. For specific applications which are not covered in this guide...

Considerations for Direct Burial Conduit

Installation type plays a key role in the type of conduit selected for electrical systems in industrial construction projects. Above ground, below ground, direct buried, encased...

How to Calculate Labor Costs

Most important to accurately estimating labor costs is knowing the approximate hours required for project completion. Learn how to calculate electrical labor cost.