INTELLIGENT buildings could only be built by intelligent minds. As the saying goes, art is a reflection of society and in that since, the architecture and engineering sciences that would go into a building is a reflection of the knowledge of its builders.
In common usage, the terms “smart building” and “intelligent building” are often interchanged with each other, but there are actually ways to differentiate one from the other.
In a manner of speaking, it could be said that a building could be “smart”, even if it is not “intelligent”. Broadly speaking however, a building could hardly be considered as “intelligent”, if it is not actually “smart”.
Digressing a little bit, it seems that the so-called “green buildings” are not necessarily “smart buildings” also, much less be also considered as “intelligent buildings”. As it is defined, it seems that “green buildings” could be called as such if these would pass certain environmental criteria.
On the other hand, “smart buildings” could be called as such if these would pass certain connectivity criteria. In between being “green” and being “smart”, it seems to be implied that a building needs to have renewable energy in order to pass both standards.
Strictly speaking however, there is more to technology than just connectivity, and that is where the higher concept of “intelligent buildings” would come in.
As I see it, the standards for “intelligent buildings” should encompass both being “green” and being “smart”, and having renewable energy within also. That should just be for starters, because being “intelligent” nowadays also means being climate resilient, being disaster ready and being food sufficient.
As it is generally understood right now, being “green” means having a few plants here and there to help keep the air fresh, but it is not yet understood to mean vertical farming or box farming. What is actually happening now is that the standards for being “green” are now being elevated to actually also include food production for reasons of food security.
There is no official literature yet that could be used as a guide, but in the absence of that, I would take the liberty to say that “smart buildings” would refer only to convenience and cost efficiency, but “intelligent buildings” would already include not only building security, but also climate resiliency, disaster readiness and food sufficiency, among others.
There is no limit to what “others” could mean. Among others, it could mean automated vertical parking or light manufacturing. What is obvious however is that it should enable the building occupants to live, work, learn, play and pray within the facility.
There is actually no official literature that could be used as a guide, but I think that enterprise resource planning (ERP), building management systems (BMS), programmable logic controllers (PLCs), management information systems (MIS), executive information systems (EIS), customer relations management (CRM) and business intelligence (BI) software should already be integrated into intelligent buildings.
For sure, fiber optic cables (FOCs) will be used for intelligent buildings, and it would be such a waste if these advanced features would not be included into the overall systems.
As it is now, closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras are already used in many buildings, but these are mostly of the analog type now. What is actually more intelligent so to speak is to use web based cameras (webcams) instead, because these are already using internet protocol (IP).
In addition to that, the technology is now here to use electronic sensors for all kinds of tracking and monitoring purposes. If that is done, then the internet of things (IOT) technologies could already be used, in which case everything in the intelligent buildings could be tracked and monitored from the inside, and reported to outside servers and databases.
For example, electronic sensors could be used to monitor the movement of people (both residents and intruders). These could also be used to detect not only motion, but also temperatures (hot and cold), moisture and air quality, among others.
As it is now, BMS could already monitor all kinds of utilities such as power, water and gas, but BMS could still be improved by using IOT. As a bonus, FOC could also be used for internet, television and telephony. By using FOC, the building could also have an intranet that is independent from the internet, as well as an intercom system that is independent from the local telephone exchange.
Not to be forgotten, the “green building” standards should also include the collection of rainwater, and the recycling of grey water. As much as possible, all waste should be recycled within, with nothing going out.
Recycling is actually an opportunity, because from the waste, we could produce energy such as biogas. Using solar panels is of course a good way to produce renewable energy, but of course it would also be good to have other sources such as biomass, wind, hydro and dendro.
We could talk about many high end technologies in order to define what “intelligent” really means, but the real bottom line of “intelligent” is safety and economy. At the risk of stating the obvious, safety means being safe from intruders, from climate changes and from disaster risks.
Economy means having cheaper food supplies and cheaper utilities. Between safety and economy, it seems that the most important common denominator is food, because nowadays, food should not only be cheaper, it should also be safer.
It goes without saying that food that is vertically grown inside a building is necessarily safe, because it is not only natural, it is also organic./PN
