When it comes to intelligent buildings, technology is advancing at a rate faster than its implementation. Our contributor examines ways to improve the situation
It was not long ago that owning a facsimile machine was enough to signify that you were up to speed with office technology. Pretty soon we casually called them 'the fax' and surrounded ourselves with every bit of evolving technology available.

Commerce and industry in general have always been good at embracing technological advancements with open arms. Yet the same cannot be said of those whose job it is to design and construct the buildings in which we work. It would seem as though neither the interest nor financial investment exists.

Construction projects are still managed in much the same way as they were a century ago. An architect designs a building, and all too often the services are shoehorned into it, seemingly as an afterthought. Materials have changed, technology is constantly being developed, but the methods remain the same.

Contracts for the supply of electrical services in buildings have traditionally been let via an electrical contractor; and heating, ventilation and air conditioning by a mechanical contractor, which is normally responsible for the intelligent controls. The difficulty with this is that the mechanical contractor needs to be involved at all stages of the project, but may know little about integrated intelligent building systems.

The mindset of the construction industry is showing reluctance to move with the times. At a very basic level there is limited use of e-mail and the internet, but good old pen and paper is still the recording method of choice on most site visits.

While software to create 3D images of areas in the planning stages is available, it would seem that there is little take-up of this tool by consultants. The way building projects are planned lacks an up-to-date skill base and understanding of intelligent networked systems. And sadly, with the pace of development as fast as it is, the knowledge gap is widening.

Paper chains
With woeful lack of communication, services are not always co-ordinated logically and are often installed on a first come, first served, basis. How often do we experience a similar disregard for the benefits of collaboration among those digging up our highways?

Such practices invariably extend the overall project time and end up costing the client more money. The m&e services need to be in place before the control systems that operate them, and with mounting time and cost constraints, these vital control systems can end up playing 'tail-end Charlie' and be squeezed out.

Most firms of consulting engineers have scant knowledge of the range of intelligent control systems brought to them by recent technological advancements

Convoluted lines of communication evolve, with all parties liaising through the mechanical contractor, who effectively becomes a postbox. Vast volumes of paper are passed around without being filtered appropriately. This may be due to lack of time on the part of the mechanical contractor or perhaps they are covering themselves by making sure that everyone has every iota of information, regardless of its direct relevance. The end result is that the dissemination of correct information to the right parties is too cumbersome to be properly managed.

Wising up
Most consulting engineers have scant knowledge of the range of intelligent control systems now available. Control systems contractors also remain pitifully unaware of the possibilities that they are passing up.

The end client is effectively being short-changed. They are also likely to be paying more for an intelligent building that is offering less than what is actually possible.

It would be useful if consultants employed IT experts to keep a watchful eye on the development of intelligent buildings of the future. Architects need to liaise more effectively with the construction industry, and the companies that develop and produce controls for intelligent buildings could do more to promote their products. Between us we should see to it that we are producing the best possible intelligent buildings in the most cost-effective way.

Symbiosis is the name of the game, where collaboration leads to benefits all round. The old fix-it-when-it-breaks mentality needs to be replaced by installation of the readily available technology that allows maintenance information to be gathered and presented on screen to enable pre-planning. Planned preventative maintenance, exception reporting and condition monitoring are proven techniques.

Signature monitoring for electrical services is a new and exciting field waiting to be fully exploited. Further, the concept of plantroom pods and the discontinuation of electrical distribution panels could have a radical effect on the shape of buildings, giving greater scope to architects.

Tenant billing applications now allow accurate collection, calculation and formatting of data in multi-tenanted buildings, giving the landlord management information at a very sophisticated level, yet how many of them know about it?