Laik, Heng Juan; (1997) Intelligent buildings: An evaluation on their capability to meet the needs of organisations and end users. Masters thesis (M.Sc), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

The concept of "intelligent building" was first introduced in the early 1980s as a marketing tool to promote a building that had adopted the latest computer technology and automation system. Though the term "intelligent building" has become commonly used globally since then, it continues to mean different things to different people. Many articles have been written about intelligent building and offering several definitions, yet there are quite a confusion on the understanding of what makes a building intelligent or unintelligent. To a certain degree, the concept of intelligent building has been commonly associated with advance technology and building automation (Donald, 1996). The push for this concept has come from developers, manufacturer and IT suppliers with a technical bias towards IT system and integration. This has led to the provision of much sophisticated and complex technology, with the present of many gimmicks and gadgets in intelligent buildings. By doing so it was believed that this can make the building to be more attractive than ordinary building and enable the owners and developers to lease out their buildings more easily. Except for a few applications, there is still a great doubt whether those sophisticated intelligent building systems installed today can really add value to organisations and end users. Intelligent buildings, similar to any other building development, are substantial investments. The poor decisions about the facilities in intelligent buildings can cost millions of pounds and worst still they can be a stumbling block to organisations in achieving their basic objectives. On the supply side, the lack of understanding of the actual business needs of organisations may lead to the provision of inappropriate technologies and systems in intelligent buildings. On the demand side, the lack of understanding and awareness by the users on the original intent of the design may lead to under-utilisation of the systems. This report examines the concept of intelligent buildings to both the supply and the demand side in order to identify the similarity and differences between them. The benefit of intelligent buildings as claimed by the supply side is compared with the actual benefits experienced by the existing users. The constraining factors for implementing intelligent building strategies are analysed in order to identify various possible means to overcome them. The report concludes with the key findings and some speculations on future directions of intelligent buildings.

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