1.

Keywords
2. 1. Introduction
3. 2. Definitions of intelligent building
4. 3. Previous intelligent building research
o 3.1. Research in advanced and innovative technologies
o 3.2. Research in performance evaluation methodologies
o 3.3. Research in investment evaluation analysis
5. 4. Investment considerations and evaluation techniques for intelligent building
o 4.1. Net present value method
o 4.2. Life cycle costing analysis
o 4.3. Cost benefit analysis
o 4.4. Analytical hierarchy process
6. 5. Conclusions
7. References

Introduction to Intelligent
Buildings
The Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) defines an
intelligent building as “one that provides a productive and cost-effective
environment based on three basic elements:people, products, and processes”.

In this context, the people are the building

services users and facilities managers. The products are those employed in the building fabric
and structure and as part of its facilities.

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When it comes to processes, we’re really talking about automation, control, systems,
maintenance, and performance.
Inevitably, there will be interrelationships among these three elements. The CIBSE definition
continues:

Intelligent Buildings help building owners, property managers and occupants realise their
goals in the areas of costs, lifetime energy management, well-being, convenience, safety,
long term flexibility and marketability to achieve buildings which have high social,
environmental and economic values.

Benefits of an Intelligent Building

1. Energy Savings. Many buildings constructed in the past two decades have been designed
with sustainability and low energy use in mind.
2. Reducing cost of changing occupancy and configuration
3. Improving end user / employee productivity in the workplace
4. Maintaining a comfortable, safe and secure environment at all times for those who work
within

Unmanageable complexity
However, conclusions drawn from post-occupancy evaluation specialists occasionally have
been questioning in nature. These conclusions are perhaps best summed up by the sentence:
“Unmanageable complexity is the enemy of good performance.”

From an engineering perspective, there have been instances of overly complicated designs
that are difficult to apply in a real-world setting. Technology-centric risk has sometimes been
introduced, mainly due to product interfaces lacking cohesion and compatibil ity.

In certain scenarios, we’ve witnessed the emergence of a dependency culture when it comes
to maintenance and/or aftercare. Here, the building owner is reliant on often expensive
engineering callouts to modify the settings of specific digital systems they’re not able to
maintain themselves and for which they don’t possess the access rights (and, sometimes, the
software).

Convergence issues caused by intelligent buildings

Converged infrastructures bringing together building and business systems have gained in
popularity of late, but there are risks involved. Individuals may look to bypass security
controls, for example, or otherwise operate systems incorrectly for some kind of short -term
advantage. Also, IT and facilities management teams brought together by a determined
integration move may have different priorities, cultures, and/or chains of command. Ultimately,
such factors may serve to inhibit an effective response to security-related incidents.

However, converged infrastructures typically realise more efficient and effective working
environments. They purposefully allow for access control and other security-focused solutions
to mirror change in use patterns within a given building. This is a time-efficient, practical step
forward.

One $64,000 question that today’s professional needs to answer in relation to security and
risk management is “What problems are we trying to solve?” Once that question has been
answered, the security/risk mitigation solutions put in place absolutely have to be the most
appropriate for the tasks at hand, the most robust, and, importantly, the most reliable ones
available.
Today’s security solution designers have to understand more about what end users actually
like and dislike when it comes to, on the macro level, buildings as a whole and, on the micro
level, the security solutions provided and how they fit within everything else that duly forms
the structural backbone for the host organisation.

Intelligent, simpler buildings

From a security perspective, the major issues at play are protecting the security and privacy
of a building’s owners and users, maintaining the integrity of that building (and what happens
inside it), and ensuring the building’s continuing availability for those owners and users.

Although making matters far simpler may not be at the top of every security solutions
provider’s list of initial goals, every provider must remember at all times that intelligent
buildings are intended to render operations smoother and easier for their occupants — the
end users. Building intelligence into the equation should beget sensible systems that are also
of themselves intelligible.

Security solutions within and about buildings must not be a challenge. Neither must they
alienate the end user, nor lock security professionals into what can be time-consuming and
costly dependencies on maintenance regimes. Perhaps most importantly of all, it’s vital to
provide security professionals — and building occupants per se — with solutions they actually
want and need, as opposed to those that others believe they ought to have.