Sunday, December 31, 2000		Article

INTELLIGENT LIVING

A Smart Building is one which responds to our immediate needs and makes our living and working easier, efficient, effective and safer. It is already a part of our lives.

Knowledge, information, smartness and intelligence has become an integral part of one’s life and buildings are no exception. An intelligent or smart building is one which respond to our immediate needs and improves the habitable space making our living and working easier, efficient, effective and safer. The intelligent or smart building design would ensure a convenient, friendly, affordable, intuitive, interactive and automated interface between the habitable space, environment and the human beings. To facilitate this, the habitable space is equipped with electronic sensors, gadgets and computers which would then be programmed to respond uniquely to a set of situations and requirements. But there is much more to the story. Let us try to get it all.

The elements of an Intelligent Building can be categorised into four basic functional areas of energy efficiency systems, life safety systems, telecommunications systems and workplace automation systems.

An Intelligent Building brings in substantial energy efficiency. This system brings in a reduction in the overall energy requirements to the bare minimum by efficiently and dexterously managing the energy from different sources. For this purpose, computerised systems are used extensively, which go by many names such as Building Automation System (BAS), Energy Management System (EMS), Energy Management and Control System (EMCS), Central Control and Monitoring System (CCMS) or Facilities Management System (FMS) etc.

Integrated life

The air conditioning, heating, ventilation, as well as cooling and lighting (HVAC) is a major factor for high power bills. All these systems have become integral to our living and lifestyle. An effort to rationalise energy requirements pose the major design challenges in an Intelligent Building. Many strategies are deployed to economise the energy consumption. Program-med start-stop, optimal start-stop, duty cycling, set point reset, electric demand limiting, adaptive control, chiller optimisation, boiler optimisation or optimal energy sourcing are some of the techniques commonly used for this purpose. These systems require no or minimal day-to-day human intervention. They carry on working silently as an extension of the occupant’s intelligence, requiring only the regular maintenance to function faultlessly.

In other words, the Intelligent Building is defined as the structure, system, services and management, and the interrelationship between these four elements. With all these integrated, the building system is able to respond to the internal and external climate changes, to automate office processes, to provide a comfortable environment to the workers and provide for disaster prevention. Intelligent Buildings help business owners, property managers and occupants to realise their goals in the areas of cost, comfort, convenience, safety, long-term flexibility and marketability. For example, a scenario such as I am Home could be triggered by pressing one button on a keychain remote from your vehicle as you approach the driveway. The home controller receives the keychain remote command triggering a scenario, preprogrammed and stored in the home controller.

Celestial clock

The celestial clock in the controller knows that it is 8 p.m. and past sunset, in your geographical location, therefore, starting the scenario by sequentially turning on the lighting in the driveway, garage entry, walkway, hallway, and kitchen. It then disarms the security system, opens the garage door, unlocks the interior garage entry door, adjusts the thermostat(s) to a preset home position, and turns on the whole-house audio system. The home control processor is essentially the hub of the home systems network. The home control processor is programmed to customer specific requirements to initiate sequential automatic operation of the home systems, in response to "one button" commands from a system controller, based on the situation and or time.

Other time saving scenarios such as "party time", "away", "good night" etc. involving several home systems can be activated by phone, voice, and remotes as desired. A home systems status check is also a convenient feature to add to the "good night" scenario. In addition to automatically turning off all lights and adjusting the thermostats, the system will also provide an audio report indicating the status of the security system by zone, the temperature in each zone, the position of the garage door, and the "wake up" times selected.

Life has become very insecure in terms of safety due to ever increasing risks of burglary, intrusion, accidents, fire and other natural or manmade calamities. Intelligence in the built environment with respect to life safety systems in an Intelligent Building consists of the use of high technology to maximise the performance of fire alarm and security systems while at the same time minimising the costs.

Time delay burglar alarm is the call of the day. They reduce the construction costs by aiding the removal of costly grills from the windows. This results in a better sense of aesthetics of the building in the architectural context. The installation and maintenance companie strategically display their stickers prominently on all openings to deter any to be intruder. Life safety factors involved in Intelligent Building are: Reduced man power dependence, closed-circuit television, card access control, smoke detection, intrusion alarms, emergency control of elevators, HVAC systems and doors.

Telecommunications in an Intelligent Building comprises of many sophisticated telecom features, which are less expensive as a number of users can pool in together to buy the equipment.Telecom features involved in Intelligent Buildings are PBX telephone system, cablevision, videotext, and electronic mail. Telecon-ferencing is an alternative to expensive travel budgets and electronic mail is instantaneous communications can be established worldwide on a system designed to reduce cycle time and produce savings.

Working environment

Building intelligence further extends itself into the interior of our working environment to yield what is now commonly known as the workplace automation. This has deeply affected our internal office planning generating new design influencing factors that affect our new workplace designs.

There is a major space use intensification. This encourages and supports flexible working/learning time and spaces. The Internet, e-mail and networking facilities, further supports this lifestyle technologically. Office is now where you are, operating through the wonder boxes called the laptops. The distinction between the home, hearth and work has long been wiped out.

The increasing use of high-end workstations payback as space for money, as each inch of space is squeezed to generate useable spaces. A reduction in the use of personal storage space as a business trend toward the "paperless office". Greater use of out sourced services for everything except core business functions, has made our architecture more focused. Architecture also has to accommodate gizmos like mobile computing and communications. Thus Intelligent Building control system has now got fused and integrated with business systems.

An Intelligent Building consisting of workplace automation is visible in the use of high-tech office automation systems that render the operation of a company more efficient. Factors involved in workplace automation in Intelligent Building are: centralised data processing, word processing, computer aided design information services. Typical services that can be offered are: message center, word processing, computer assisted design, teleconferencing, electronic mail, and computer services. These electronic devices replace the human with the artificial.

Message center is essential to further the cause. This is a back-up telephone switchboard for employees. It answers employee’s telephones and is connected to printers conveniently located in or near the offices of the employee for immediate delivery of messages. When a telephone line is busy or does not answer after four rings, the call is answered automatically from here. The terminal and the center display the name of the person whose phone is ringing so that the operator can answer the call courteously and accurately. The caller’s company, telephone number, brief messages, time of call, and the operator’s name are then recorded and immediately printed in the recipient’s office.

Word processing is an active participant to this fusion, where his electronic creation can be stored, revised, retrieved and transmitted.

With pick-up and delivery services at doorstep, 24-hour document turnaround during business hours and premium one-hour turnaround, a world processing service offers convenience and economy.

After implementing all elements for making our environment intelligent, the distinguishing line between the building, its interior, home and work place, man his machine, transportation, communication and biology has been totally erased. Built architecture has always been used by the lords of society as an instrument to leave its mark in the book of history. An Intelligent Building is an apt ode to this precedent.

— Namrita Kalsi