B4 - "Internet of Things" in Interlligent vs. Sustainable Buildings - Sean Coffey

Project Topic Description:

How the internet of things distinguishes intelligent buildings from sustainable buildings, its uses and limitations.

I decided a project topic that dealt with the comparing how the internet of things concept is and could be applied to intelligent buildings and sustainable buildings for many reasons. Overall I am interested to find out how this evolution is progressing and what is currently happening to make buildings better by embedding technology in them. It will be cool to find out what the future may hold, but also this topic choice will help get a better understanding of what an intelligent building is and how it compares to sustainable building, something that I am already familiar with.

This topic will not necessarily be straightforward. My partner and I will need to research intelligent buildings, sustainable buildings and agree upon definitions for each. Also we will need to do a lot of research into how devices and sensors are being integrated into building to make them smarter. There are a large variety of applications of technology for both building types which will need to be generalized or selectively analyzed to find out which applications are comparable. After that we will need to perform an analysis on how they compare. What makes the implementations different? Do they perform the same task but achieve a different result? The biggest challenge here will be finding sufficient research to back up our conclusions. We should be able to get some good data from researching examples of different examples of intelligent buildings and sustainable buildings, scholarly articles that present reviewed and tests theories of building systems that have been improved by integrating sensors to enable automated building adaptation that is directed to making the building more intelligent or more sustainable.

Comments

@Dianna Vogel
http://ae-510-ay15-16.blogspot.com/2016/01/b4-group-b-dianna-vogel.html?showComment=1454046675441#c1298989061727037337

I am interested to see more of what you end up discovering by modeling Mies Van der Rhoe’s Farnsworth House. I think that you all have made a wise decision to pick a project that lightens your workload and also developing a crucial architectural engineering skill. Our most recent guest lecturer and Mr. Mitchell  have certainly been emphasizing the benefit of learning and becoming confident with Revit. Like them I think this is a great way to prepare yourselves for Senior Design and what better way is there to learn and practice Revit than by recreating an existing building. You may be able to use the structural analysis tools built into Revit to help you with your structural design class deliverables or export the finished design to a program that can do a better structural analysis than Revit. But I am more interested in what you all will find about how the building accomplished its architectural purpose of integrating itself with nature from modeling the building. You may also find that the building was not an optimum design either due to a mistake in its construction or on purpose to make the building more connected with nature. I would bet that you would bind that so much glass in a building in the 1950’s would not be the best choice for a building built in Illinois climate. The use of a lot of glass does not lend itself to good heat retention. There may be other discoveries that you come across that help you to better understand how Mies Van der Rhoe achieved the objective behind the buidling’s design by applying architectural principles. I am interested to hear more about your reflection on recreating the building.

@ Laura Worley

http://ae-510-ay15-16.blogspot.com/2016/01/b4-group-worley.html

Your project topic has also been an interest of mine because of how adaptive facades can make a building come to life in a small way. Just like how the lit facade of Cira Center arguably makes the building more expressive and attractive. I enjoy how the facade changes themes and makes Philly’s skyline a little more artistic.

As you mentioned there are many different types of buildings with adaptive facades and they vary widely in design and purpose. Because of this you and Allison may need to narrow down your topic by focusing on specific types of adaptive building facades. Whatever you chose to do moving forward, I am excited to hear about the building facades you feature in your project.