True Intelligent Building With The
ASTM E1557 UNIFORMAT II Standard

This intelligent building information is based on the article "How Can Buildings Be Intelligent?" written by Donald A. Coggan, PE, for American Technology Magazine.

It's about re-coining the phrase, "intelligent building" (that's the singular, not the plural form) resulting from the straightforward application of UNIFORMAT.

Article Abstract

Those outside the construction industry often wonder how an assembly of inanimate building materials can be intelligent - even with people in it. Industry insiders, especially developers and owners, see buildings stuffed with the latest technology as being intelligent. Both are wrong and both are right, and this article will show that there is an elegant way of resolving the seeming paradox.

In the early l980s, trade magazines began running stories on "intelligent buildings." Publications concerned with mechanical systems did articles on automation systems making buildings more energy-efficient. Magazines serving the communications industry told how advanced telecommunications systems made buildings more efficient and therefore more intelligent.

As a result of extensive press coverage and supplier advertising, there has always been pressure on owner/developers to build smart buildings. Intelligent buildings are said to be more attractive and easier to lease. Existing buildings, lacking the attractive features of the newer, more intelligent ones could lose tenants to their more intelligent competitors.

This article offers a summarized, simplified explanation of intelligent buildings for either the newcomer to the industry or someone already in the industry but specializing in one particular aspect of it. It also suggests a new approach, embodied in the expression, "intelligent building" (that's the singular, not the plural form) resulting from the straightforward application of the ASTM Standard E1557-97 - UNIFORMAT II for short.

Historical Context

As long ago as 1985, the November issue of Engineering Digest carried an article showing how steel framing and cellular steel flooring had contributed to building intelligence. Fortune, Forbes, Business Week and countless trade magazines all carried extensive articles on the intelligent building business. In effect, new buildings incorporating the latest technologies could be touted as intelligent and therefore more easily marketed.

A study carried out by the Harbinger Group of Connecticut showed that many existing buildings in North America lacked the "intelligence" to effectively handle the information technology systems used by the businesses that are tenants in buildings. This situation begged the question of what to do with these older, "less intelligent" existing buildings. Almost in response, the Rockefeller Center in New York City created its own telecommunications corporation to implement a sophisticated shared telecommunications system in all of its 19 buildings.

Even though the expression has been with us for at least 15 years, there is not really a universally acceptable definition of "intelligent building." One developer said that it's "a building that is fully leased." According to this line of thinking, any feature helping to lease the building fully could be considered intelligent.

One definition, which resulted from the International Symposium on the Intelligent Building, May 28 and 29, 1985 in Toronto is: "an intelligent building combines innovations, technological or not, with skilful management, to maximize return on investment."

The Intelligent Building Institute has proposed: "an intelligent building is one that provides a productive and cost-effective environment through optimization of its four basic elements - structure, systems, services and management - and the interrelationships between them. Intelligent buildings help business owners, property managers and occupants to realize their goals in the areas of cost, comfort, convenience, safety, long-term flexibility and marketability."

Such definitions lead inexorably to a more all-encompassing meaning - overall performance, not only of the building itself, but also of the entire construction process. This concept is best expressed in the mission statement for the uniformat.com site on the World Wide Web: "to improve building investment performance by applying ASTM E1557-97 'Standard Classification Of Building Elements and Related Sitework - UNIFORMAT II.' This classification enables a seamless link of all phases of a building life cycle - from facilities development through facilities management."

The UNIFORMAT approach to building intelligence encompasses previous definitions which emphasized incorporating the latest technology. Equally importantly, it facilitates a rigorous means of evaluating which technologies should be used to maximize building investment performance, since the role of technology remains undeniable.

High Technology

The high technology concept of smart buildings was introduced in the United States in the early 1980s. According to this approach, intelligent buildings use electronics extensively and are high-technology related. In fact, the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC had a committee dealing with "electronically-enhanced" buildings. This electronic view of things addressed four groups:

• energy efficiency
• lifesafety systems
• telecommunications systems
• workplace automation

The ultimate dream in the design of an intelligent building has always been to integrate the four operating areas into one single computerized system. All the hardware and software would be furnished by a single supplier who would use compatible equipment and common CPUs and trunk wiring. Even today, such total integration is far from being realized, even on a small scale. Nevertheless, there are suppliers capable of packaging all four categories mentioned, all as part of a single contract.

Over time, the four categories have merged into two broader ones: facilities management (energy and lifesafety) and information systems (telecommunications and workplace automation.) In general, facilities management deals with the physical structure itself and how it is operated. The term information systems refers to the way information is handled (and therefore how business is done) within the building.

With roots in the United States, the concept of the intelligent building has moved ahead quickly there compared to the rest of the world for the following reasons:

1. US law has permitted third parties to resell telephone services.
2. The main suppliers/promoters of the concept of the intelligent building are almost totally in the US.
3. The level of building construction and renovation is sufficiently high to permit experimentation on a large scale.

Nevertheless, the concept of the intelligent building is now unquestionably worldwide. The Journal of Architecture, Volume 1, Summer 1996, carried the paper, "Intelligent building technologies: a case of Japanese buildings," by Jong-Jin Kim of the College of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.

Kim very nicely summarizes the general features of smart buildings as:

• local area networks,local area networks,
• raised floors,
• horizontal chases and vertical risers,
• audio-visual systems and
• intelligent cards.

His paper also addresses:

• occupants' amenity,
• office automation and
• energy efficiency.

Kim describes energy efficiency in terms of:

• floor-mounted air supply ducts,
• floor supply and ceiling return systems,
• decentralized environmental control systems and
• furniture integrated control systems.

His paper also mentions the issue of building energy management, which is treated in this article as being part of the broader concept of facilities management.

Facilities Management

Facilities management implies a computerized system that oversees and controls building operations, generally energy and lifesafety. Although the potential exists to integrate all facilities management activities into one monstrous system, practical and economic considerations discourage this. What is more likely is an interface among the various systems - HVAC, lighting, fire, security - enabling essential communications.

Owners resist putting all their eggs in one basket. For some selfish reason, they want competitive bids from a number of qualified suppliers. Having everything wrapped up in a single integrated package could limit competition to extremely few bidders. So few that one unnamed government representative said, "I could count them on one finger."

Although total integration remains as practically out of reach as the rabbit in a greyhound race, there have been giant strides toward it in facilities energy management systems. Since 1987, the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Airconditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) has worked on the development of an open data communications protocol called BACnet. This protocol enables control systems from multiple, competing manufacturers to communicate or "interoperate" with one another. In 1995, BACnet was formally adopted as ASHRAE/ANSI Standard 135-1995.

The BACnet protocol will undergo a large-scale, real-life test in the 450 Golden Gate project (Phillip Burton Federal Building) in San Francisco, California. In a major experiment that all industry watchers will closely scrutinize, the US General Services Administration has let the controls contract for the project based on a total BACnet design. GSA along with Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) awarded the work to Alerton Technologies, Inc. of Redmond, Washington and The Trane Company of LaCrosse, Wisconsin.

The project was divided into two vendor scopes of work with each vendor's system communicating on a BACnet network. The Alerton system will be based on Alerton's new BACnet system called BACtalk®. The Trane system will be based on the Trane Tracer Summit system.

Almost 25 years after the oil crisis in the early 1970s, energy efficiency continues to be a top priority in intelligent building design. The goal is to reduce energy use to the bare minimum without sacrificing occupant comfort. For this, computerized systems are used extensively. Such systems have as many aliases as the top dog on the FBI's most-wanted list: Building Automation System (BAS), Energy Management System (EMS), Energy Management and Control System (EMCS), Central Control and Monitoring System (CCMS) and Facilities Management System (FMS).

Strategies used by facilities management systems to reduce energy consumption in intelligent buildings include:

• Programmed start/stop
• Optimal start/stop
• Duty cycling
• Setpoint reset
• Electric demand limiting
• Adaptive control
• Chiller optimization
• Boiler optimization
• Optimal energy sourcing

Intelligence with respect to lifesafety in an intelligent building consists of the use of high technology to maximize the performance of fire alarm and security systems while at the same time minimizing costs. Lifesafety factors involved in intelligent buildings include:

• reduced manpower dependence,
• closed-circuit television,
• card access control,
• smoke detection,
• intrusion alarms,
• emergency control of elevators, HVAC systems, doors and
• uninterruptible power supplies.

Information Systems

Information systems include telecommunications and workplace automation.

Intelligence with respect to telecommunications in an intelligent building consists of the offering to tenants of many sophisticated telecom features at a considerably reduced cost due to the fact that the equipment is shared by many users. Some of the telecom features involved in intelligent buildings are:

• private telephone exchange systems,
• cablevision,
• audio-visual and video-conferencing,
• satellite communications and,
• electronic mail, Intranets and Internet access.

Intelligence with respect to workplace automation in an intelligent building consists of the use of high-tech office automation systems to render the operation of a company more efficient. This can be done at a reduced cost to tenants by virtue of the equipment being shared. Some of the factors involved in workplace automation in intelligent buildings include:

• centralized data processing,
• word processing,
• computer-aided design and
• information services

Uniformat Standard

Building developers and owners face pressure from all sides to incorporate the latest technology to make their buildings intelligent. They fear that not doing so will result in an ordinary building that is harder to lease than its more intelligent competitor. And fear is a great motivator.

Based on a study by the author of 200 intelligent buildings, the reality is that intelligent buildings do not differ greatly from conventional ones. This notion is seconded by Kim in his paper on Japanese buildings. A further reality indicated by the author's study is that marketing a building as intelligent seems more important than actual building intelligence. This brings us to some important conclusions, guidelines perhaps, to help developers and owners make the most of building intelligence, summarized as:

• clearly establish the mission/objective of the building,
• demonstrate how the building's intelligence benefits the occupants/tenants and
• evaluate, as part of the application of the Uniformat standard, which technologies actually need to go into the building.

A rigorous evaluation is only a part of what application of the Uniformat standard can do for a building developer/owner. Because the Uniformat standard streamlines communications at all levels and among all participants in a building project, from "cradle to grave," the owner/developer can realize significantly better investment performance. With a Uniformat approach, "intelligent building" really means something.

The Author

Don Coggan is owner and principal engineer of Donald A. Coggan, Engineer, of Montreal, Canada. Don has extensive experience in computerized automation, intelligent buildings and value engineering in construction. He is the author of over 60 articles and technical papers, which he has presented throughout North America and in Europe and Asia. Recent efforts include writing a training manual and accompanying software for instrumentation technician evaluation, and co-editing a 900-page book on instrumentation basics, both for the Instrument Society of America. In addition, he developed a multi-media presentation on Direct Digital Control for the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-conditioning Engineers. He can be reached by e-mail at don@coggan.com.

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