Tuesday, May 03, 2005
Overly Smart Buildings
There is a world of difference between leading and bleeding edge technologies."Smart buildings" -- buildings whose climate, lighting and security systems are managed by computer -- are nothing new. But they've received attention lately as building managers consider integrating their systems into service oriented architectures (SOAs), allowing data to be shared and ported to smaller devices within a building. But at what point does intelligence stop becoming the smart solution?
Research into intelligent buildings has found that often, building management metrics conflict. User comfort, for instance, is not compatible with energy savings if occupants continually turn up the heat and override efficiency settings. Or, if sensors fail, how will the building's systems respond? Will they attempt to compensate, or will the failure act as a "circuit breaker"?
Costs are also becoming a concern. Making a building "intelligent" has very clear up-front expenses as well as maintenance costs. Hardware and software also run the risk of obsolecense; if a sensor breaks and it's no longer being manufactured, will the entire system need replacing?
Building engineers are increasingly taking a more tactical approach to building intelligence, such as focusing on one specific metric (which, more and more, is security). "I honestly think the idea of having everything networked together misses the point," says Harvard architectural professor Michele Addington. "You can do a hell of a lot with a few discrete things. There's a concern that the technology is coming in before we have the sophistication to know how best to deploy it."
Another problem with too much hardware and software is that most of it is currently proprietary. If a building owner needs repairs or alterations to the control systems, he has two choices: get the existing company to do the work as a sole source contractor at usually triple the rates, or get it out for a competitive bid and pray the two companies' systems are compatible. BACnet is a control protocol that can eliminate this problem, but it's not used to a large extent.
Thanks to Future Wire.