Lessons learned from seven years of smarter buildings

The Cundall technology group is a geographically diverse team supporting projects across the world by providing AV, IT, telecoms, building automation, smart building and smart city consultancy and accreditation assessor services.

As Cundall’s technology group heads into its eighth year of supporting clients, designing user experience-led, operationally efficient, and future-ready buildings, the team has taken the opportunity to reflect on the knowledge gained from these projects. In this blog, we look at how our experiences and observations of the changing technology market have influenced our consulting approach to delivering what the industry now refers to as smart buildings.

Great expectations

In the corporate real estate industry, tenant expectations have shifted significantly, prompting landlords to increase their efforts to differentiate their offerings in a competitive market.  

Attracting investment for new construction projects at preferential interest rates is linked to the targets a building is designed to meet and validated against once operational.

Regulations (eg Part L), guidance (eg TM39, TM54) and certifications (eg BREEAM, WELL, NABERS) have become more challenging. Reducing energy and resource consumption, improving indoor environmental quality, and minimising project-generated carbon requires a truly interdisciplinary design process to identify and integrate the right smart building technology and respond to these evolving demands effectively.

What kind of smart do you mean?

The terms, smart-ready building, smart building and smart workplace are frequently used interchangeably, yet they refer to distinct outcomes with varying costs. Reaching agreement on these terms is unlikely, but from our team’s perspective, the following are brief definitions which in turn shape our offerings to clients.

Smart-ready buildings have deployed building systems that are securely networked, communicating and exposing data so that they are ready for the future deployment of smart building software, user experience opportunities, and facilities management efficiencies.

Smart buildings are built on a smart-ready foundation, implementing multiple integrations between building systems. That allows for more streamlined facilities management operational efficiency, sustainability and user experiences beyond a traditional building. 

Smart workplaces are centred around effective usage of the office floorplate, focusing on digitising booking desks, rooms and workspaces, understanding occupancy and space utilisation through sensing and analytics, cleaning regimes and enabling staff to operate more efficiently. 

In general, smart is a reference to designs that leverage technology, integrations, and data sharing to enhance sustainability, efficiency, and user experience.

The key to project success and client confidence in our commitment to their goals is to uncover what smart means to them.

Clients may already have a mature, fully formed view of what smart means to their business and how they benefit from it, captured in a corporate playbook with optioneering opportunities to suit budget, region, and office sizes. Other clients require support on their journey, whether that is solving a particular problem such as efficient space utilisation or automating functions to free up resources. Occasionally, the only brief is for the project to secure a certification such as SmartScore (a landlord-focused certification assessing a building’s technological foundations and user functionality) to support marketing efforts.

Whilst we have found consistency between clients and building operators in areas targeting efficiency, resilience and understanding the building in operation, we engage with many different client types. Owner/occupier, anchor tenant, landlords that retain assets for the long term and developers that are short term asset holders all require tailored support to embed smart into their projects and efficiently migrate existing assets to a smarter implementation.

Beware the cost of building data

The familiar saying, "If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it," often leads clients and some consultants to believe that more data is always beneficial.

However, extensive data collection and processing can significantly impact capital expenditure and leave landlords with ongoing operational costs that do not add value to them or their tenants. Balancing the need for data with the associated costs ensures that the data collected is truly valuable and actionable.

We’re often asked to clarify why data is expensive. From capture to processing, there are sensing devices (day one and replacement), hardware/software licensing, cabling, data networks, power, cooling, equipment space, data storage, data processing, and analytics, particularly where artificial intelligence and machine learning is involved, which is all costly. 

A degree of data collection and sharing is mandated by regulations (billing, evidence of the building operating within design parameters, etc). However, evaluating whether data that goes beyond this requirement will enable actionable insight that enhances user experience, improves operational efficiency or reduces resource consumption should be undertaken.

Middleware is everywhere 

Although many building systems have moved to using common open protocols to communicate and expose data, specific software known as middleware is often required to act as a bridge or intermediary between two or more systems. In addition, middleware often provides enhanced functionality that the systems alone are unable to achieve. 

Many software vendors refer to their smart building platform as a Building Operating System (BOS), providing functions such as a consolidated view of the building systems in operation (a single pane of glass), conditional alerts, and actions based on the outputs of multiple systems and other analytical platforms. A BOS could be considered middleware.

Where there is reward, there can also be risk.

Maintaining compatibility with multiple systems requires constant diligence on the part of the middleware provider. For operators, identifying whether a fault originates from system A, system B, or the middleware itself can be challenging, especially when deciding who to call for support.

If middleware ceases to function, this might have a minor impact such as the inability to display a graphic comparing building occupancy and energy utilisation on a dashboard. More seriously, middleware failure could result in the access control systems being unable to interface with the lift management system, potentially disrupting building operations and security.

Cyber security is not an optional extra

The convergence of IT, telephony and audio visual systems onto a single data network that occurred in the corporate office over a decade ago, has slowly been replicated by the systems that operate buildings.

Building management systems, CCTV, intercom, access control, and other systems that were once deployed on their own physically and logically separate communications networks now typically reside on a single building-wide data network, referred to as a CNS (Common or Converged Network System).

From an IT management perspective, maintaining one well documented network procured from a single manufacturer is preferable, but the potential risk of unauthorised access to that network is the opportunity to compromise multiple building systems simultaneously. A cyber attack has equal potential to cause the evacuation of a building as triggering the fire alarm. 

A multifaceted approach is required to manage these risks. It begins with advising our clients on the value of investing in the right solutions that will underpin their building for at least the next five years. 

Robust project document is also essential. In addition to the performance criteria of a network and the building systems that connect to it, we define critical tasks such as network penetration testing, validation of field device and servers, and the implementation of policies that block unapproved, uncertificated, and/or insecurely configured devices.

The key to success is identifying a specialist contractor, typically known as a master system integrator, who can take the requirements and guide the subcontractors, who often view these specifications and requirements as onerous or beyond their skill set. 

IT security is rarely at the top of the list when planning a new construction project, but it makes headlines when failures occur and trust in technology is lost.

After seven years of smart buildings, our vision is that all projects embrace an inter-disciplinary approach to leverage technology that achieves demonstrable benefits. Our passion remains the same, delivering the most sustainable, intelligently operating buildings that our clients enjoy experiencing.