Building for the future. Where next for smart tech? Insights from the Smart Buildings Show

Beverley Eggleton, Marketing Manager for Cordless Consultants shares her key takeaways from the Smart Buildings Show 2024…

Really good to be at Smart Buildings Show 2024. Meeting and bumping into industry colleagues old and new, it was just great to see what people are getting up to in an industry brimming with ideas and discussions on how to deliver real human-centric value from smart buildings.

This year’s show characterised an industry welcoming a diverse range of professionals across a range of technology specialisms, taking knowledge from what has worked before and combining this with new innovations. From energy management, to controls and networks, IT infrastructure and management and Proptech; there was a lot to inspire.

First up, I watched my colleague Tom Keeling Keeling, Smart Solutions Consultant + Data Specialist at Cordless Consultants on a panel discussion entitled: Uniting Digital and Physical Workplaces.

In this session, chaired by Georgina Austin-Smith from Diversified, Tom was joined by Matthew Marson from JLL, and James Leyland from Appspace to discuss technologies that enhance workplace management, optimise AV Systems and analytics; and facilitate the smart building transformation.

They began by talking about the challenges that need to be addressed to implement smart technology.

Not surprisingly, cost, change management and strategy were top of the list.

The key word here that was echoed across the conference, was “value”. Defining it and delivering on it being the name of the game.

An understanding of what can be gained from technology is crucial, giving clarity to the entire project ecosystem from the members of the design team right through to the building owners and occupiers. This way, user-centre design can be put at the very centre of the workplace project, aligning all disciplines under a smart building ‘north star’.

Data strategy is imperative. Ask early on what you want and need to capture to deliver value in the future. Then work backwards.

Get the simple things right. Remember to plan for the future but you don’t need to have everything all at once! Build a digital spine into your building and then you can work out from there. Committing to a high-quality design from the outset, you can support your business capabilities now and surround this with a strong system of processes to allow for future growth.

The panel then considered how smart can contribute to sustainability goals. The panel thought responsibility was key here. Do we really need new buildings, if there is real estate lying dormant? Can we consider mixed use real estate? Where can we retrofit?

People want to be able to take responsibility for reducing their own carbon footprints. Smart technology can help people take ownership. Digital signage can show the impact of tenancy and use of facilities. Signs can remind people that they can take outdoor meetings. Air quality reporting helps people cultivate settings that optimise wellness, efficiency and productivity.

The balance between buildings as investments and being places to work and thrive is vital. Workplace should not just be viewed of as a cost, but as spaces that drive value. Strategies that allow us to move from spaces that hold value to places that deliver value is the order of the day.

Across the conference, we heard of examples where smart buildings are having surprising outcomes.

I heard of the story of the overzealous new state of the art smart building that automatically cancelled all meeting room bookings as soon as the air quality dropped below a conservative threshold, leaving users in a total state of confusion and frustration.

Then there was the tale of how ambient background water sounds being used in a building had the undesired effect of people taking many trips to the toilet!

I did like the story of how using simple weather data in another building allowed systems to automatically adjust filters to account for high pollen, significantly improving sick days.

These stories remind us to adopt a mindset of continuous improvement. This industry is moving quickly, so don’t be afraid to run pilots to allow small fruits to grow and prove value, so that full integration can be more successful.

Architect the process around the equipment. Specify outcomes instead of technology and you’ll be halfway there!

These sentiments were echoed in another panel led by Kevin Brownell CPP from Nuxform.
The subject was Harmonising Demand for Smart Buildings: Trends, Challenges, and Best Practices.

In this discussion, Head of Smart Solutions at Cordless Consultants, Ravi Lakhani was joined by his peers from the Digital Buildings Council Council as they shared insights, challenging current thinking to drive smart building best practice and industry demand.

Joining Ravi were Linden Stephens (British Land), James Thomas (SES Engineering Services), and Damien Renaut (Landsec).

Top tips that the DBC gave to the audience included:

• Centralise stakeholders and ask the right questions to inform smart decision making.
• Assets should be self-describing of their purpose and functionality to enhance data analysis capabilities.
• Buildings cost more to run than to build, with 20% of costs tied to construction and 80% to ongoing operations.
• Success must be defined as user centric for demonstrating holistic ROI.

As Ravi said during the course of the discussion:

“A smart building to me is a building that inspires people to want to be there and integrates well with technology. It’s about making use of technology to do something new, providing increased wellbeing within our buildings to make people feel more comfortable so that they never feel lost within a space. All of these technologies do exist; and being able to join them together more effectively is what will make our workplaces of the future.”

If you’d like to talk to Cordless Consultants about designing for your workplace of the future and how smart technology can help, we’d love to.

Say hello@cordless.co.uk or complete our enquiry form.