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GIS-CONNECTED INTELLIGENT BUILDINGS COMMUNITY (INTEBCO)
V. Agnolotti^ C. Giger?
? Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Institute of Geodesy and Photogrammetry, ETH Hónggerberg, 8093
Zürich CH - (agnolotti, giger)@geod.baug.ethz.ch
KEYWORDS: Spatial Information Sciences, GIS, Architecture, Facilities, Urban, Integration, Building, CAD
ABSTRACT:
Research and development carried out on the “Intelligent Building” (IB) have always been addressed to obtain a building capable to
adapt itself to external environmental changes and keep the maximum internal comfort. À well performing IB can require up to 30%
less energy than a traditional building for its management. The IB is able to learn how to adapt itself according to specific inputs and
to store its “experience” in order to use it in subsequent events. Target of our present research is to connect a group of IBs in order
to exploit the experience of each of them to maximize the performances of connected buildings. The connected buildings create an
Intelligent Buildings Community (INTEBCO), providing internal co-operation with the aim of optimising comfort, low energy
consumption and costs containment for each building. The Community is a living “organism” that, through a net of sensors as
"skin", becomes capable to interact with the external environment. On-line and off-line simulations will provide behavioural
instructions for each connected building: a central control unit will forward the instructions to the Community. The application
scenario is a bank real estate; the test comfort requirement is internal illumination and visual comfort. Our purpose is to enable each
building of the Community to communicate data, experiences and instructions to other buildings and building components (adaptive
façade and window elements, solar shadings, internal coatings) according to weather changes, maximizing internal luminous
comfort performances for the whole community and minimizing artificial lighting usage and costs for each building. A connection
between buildings, sensors, simulation, actuators and building components has to be realized through a central control unit that
collects input data deriving from external sensors and outputs consequent actions. Tools for the realization of connections are GIS,
CAD and simulation programs. The GIS plays the fundamental role of the Information System and tool for integration in the whole
system. CAD and simulation programs provide data sources and act as data acquisition tools for GIS.
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 Motivation
Every building is integrated in an external environment, and
this environment is continuously changing. Weather changes
can affect the general building behaviour, with heavy
repercussions on the internal comfort performance of the
building and on the amount of energy and costs needed to keep
comfort constant according to assigned parameters.
It has been globally agreed that energy consumption has a
significant impact on the environment. Year by year, the built
environment has been growing and the demand of high-
technology buildings is bigger and bigger, with serious impact
on the environment. Energy consumption is not the only
building item that impacts on the environment. Other items like
the selection of materials and the design for flexibility, site and
waste planning, as well as energy planning represent a critical
factor in the environmental crisis (Ngowi, 2001). Building and
construction highly contribute to the environment crisis by the
exhaustion of resource, energy consumption, air pollution and
creation of waste (Spence & Mulligan, 1995). According to
Dimson (Dimson, 1996) globally, buildings consume 16% of
the water, 40% of the energy used annually, and close to 70%
of the sulphur oxides (produced by fossil fuel combustion) are
generated through the creation of the electricity used to power
houses and offices. Furthermore, energy and material input into
the construction process increase the amount of total energ
needed for building production (Kua, 2002).
The high technology concept of Intelligent Building (IB) was
introduced in the United States in the early 1980s. IBs use
electronics extensively and are high technology related. Energy
efficiency, life safety systems, telecommunication systems and
workplace automation are well integrated in the building
(Hartkopf, 1997). Building elements and components,
Intelligent Façade and internal coatings concur to provide
internal comfort. Since the Nineties, a lot of research and
development has been done on the IB, in order to obtain a
building capable to adapt itself to external changes, keep the
maximum internal comfort and optimize the energy usage.
Energy usage in the building is related to the following local
factors:
= climate (sun elevation angle, sun radiation,
temperature, wind force and direction, rainfalls);
= exposure and surface of the ground (slope angle,
form, geometry, proportions);
» location, geometry, dimension and volume of the
surrounding buildings, topography, areas with water
and vegetation (reflection, emission, changing in the
thermal body). (Gallo, 1998) (Fig. 1)
Studies and research have proved that a well performing
IB can require up to 30% less energy than a traditional
building to keep the internal comfort in the quality level
required by the energy consumption laws and regulations.
Intelligent Buildings have been successfully designed and
realized and their performances have been increasing in
the last ten years. In the past few years design and
engineering of IBs have provided not only major advances
in office technology, but also better physical and
environmental settings for the occupants (spatial, thermal,
air, acoustics and visual quality, plus building integrity
versus rapid degradation) Research on IBs is now
addressed to promotion of ecological sustainability
(energy), ^ economic sustainability ^ (costs) ^ and
