How Smart is Your Smart Building?

How smart is your smart building? At the recent WELL Conference, Rachel Hodgdon, President and CEO of the International WELL Building Institute (IWBI), brought together a distinguished panel of executives who are dedicated to making buildings more efficient, healthier and smarter at the recent WELL Conference.

The panel featured Emily Watkins, Chief Client Officer, the Instant Group, Eran Chen, Founder and Executive director of ODA Architecture, George R. Oliver, Chairman and CEO, Johnson Controls International and Rick Fedrizzi, Executive Chairman of IWBI.

Watch highlights of the panel discussion, in the WELL Forum, here.

What is a smart building?

Hodgdon kicked off the session by asking each leader, “What does the term smart building mean to you?” Panelists agreed smart buildings help maximize returns to stakeholders and shareholders and optimize the performance of employees, and each had a different take on their definition:

• “Smart buildings take technology that exists today and building systems that historically have been deployed separately and integrate them with digital technologies. With connectivity and the use of data, we can ultimately produce a net zero building that delivers indoor air quality that supports health and wellness.” - Oliver

• “A smart building is one that can survive changes and stay relevant over time. The most sustainable buildings are the ones that stay the longest. The human experience of buildings is what matters.” - Chen

• “To truly be a smart building, one must layer in the element of personalization that makes the individual more productive, healthier and happier. We are not there yet, but I think if we can unlock that piece of it, it can make the whole ecosystem so much more successful.” – Watkins

• “Smart buildings are producing a data-rich world. The predictive quality of AI is going to be the most important thing to make a building smart and create a better experience for that human being.” - Fedrizzi

How to achieve a smart building

A Forrester report commissioned by Johnson Controls International found that smart buildings empower leaders across an organization to make smart decisions, but only 10% of those interviewed said building systems and equipment were fully integrated. How does one begin the integration?

First, the core of what drives a smart building is data. “Certifying that health and wellness is real and that it is not a façade is key,” said Oliver. “With today’s technology, we can get to a high level of health and wellness at the same time we get to a net zero building, which is ultimately what we’re trying to achieve.”

Another facet of smart buildings is how organizations can reduce environmental impacts while offering employees inspired workplaces when and where they want them. “Your core headquarters deserves a tremendous amount of investment and needs to evolve,” said Watkins. “The ecosystem of spaces you are providing for your employees needs to support the entire continuum of success for employees.”

Chen added another dimension by suggesting design challenges are equally important considerations. To make a building smart, he mentioned that balancing the complexity of technology and design where it is most impactful and then introducing simplicity where it isn’t, will offset costs and achieve efficiency goals. “I describe sustainability as doing more with less,” said Chen. “I’ve been a bit concerned in the past few years that we are doing more with more which results in overloading our buildings with systems that are not coordinated and are increasingly more complex. Our firm is trying to simplify the building systems to their very core.”

Oliver explained how to get started. “For anyone that’s made a commitment to get to net zero, you have to upgrade your building, deploy technology, and integrate systems using data to determine what you can achieve from an energy reduction standpoint.”

Predictions for the future

Smart buildings will continue to evolve as the market balances all the complexities to achieve an energy-health nexus.

Just like technology and data about a building’s performance is important, technology that can identify how individuals utilize workspaces is also needed. Watkins added, “Another piece that nobody’s tapped into yet is how to define if employees have been happy and productive in workspaces.”

Chen described the smart building of the future as “a building that will respond to you.” He added, “As the building relates to your needs, data will be gathered with AI and the building will start responding to the behavior of the people and the quality of their life and work.”

Speaking of AI, Fedrizzi shared his perspective that it stands to make a building “smart enough to wrap itself around occupants in a virtual hug, to take care of them and ultimately make a better experience for that person.” And that’s something we all can get on board with as we strive to create people-first places.

Watch footage of the panel, and explore other session summaries, slide decks and photographs of the WELL Conference in the WELL Forum. Sign up here for free.