What is a Smart Building?

According to Siemens "Smart buildings improve the productivity of people and processes by leveraging technology & actionable information to help you & your building make better decisions and become smart, efficient and sustainable".

Not a perfect answer but with the building industry going through an evolution toward Smart Buildings it seems appropriate to pause and evaluate this change to see how it affects our companies and our plans in the HVAC Industry. We'll take a look at arguably the most advanced Smart Building in the world, the Edge, located in Amsterdam.

What is the Edge?

The Magazine Fast Company describes the Edge...
"When you pull up for work at Deloitte's new office building in Amsterdam, the garage automatically recognizes your car or bike, opens the gate, and guides you to a parking spot and a free electric charger. The office app assigns you a desk, based on your schedule for the day and whether you're in the mood for a standing desk or a place to concentrate. Once you start work, you can use the app to tweak the lighting or heat until it's just right. Welcome to the Edge, the most connected office anywhere.
The building's massive network of sensors-around 40,000-is unprecedented.....every light in the building hooked up to Ethernet cables that also deliver Wi-Fi. "Every light has its own IP address". View the Fast Company article and slide show here.
Solar panels on the roof and south wall provide all the electricity to power the building, laptops and smart phones and recharge occupant's electric cars.

Heat and cooling are provided with the help of a natural aquifer with two 400 foot boreholes being used to pump warm water in during summer periods for extraction during winter heating season with the opposite occurring during winter with cooling being stored in the aquifer.

The Edge lays claim to the title of most well connected office building in the world with a unique design of LED panels powered by low voltage ethernet cables. Every light panel contains sensors that measure temperature, light, movement and infrared effectively becoming its own internet connected data hub making the building and its occupants smarter.

Watch the video about the Edge created by Bloomberg Business News that does a nice job demonstrating the technologies and leading edge features incorporated in the Edge.

As you look into your future you may want to also view some of these recent blog posts.

Buildings, Energy and New Technologies: Trends & Outlook

Top HVAC Trends for 2015

Prefab Skyscrapers Reach for the Heavens Reshaping HVAC

Editor's Note: CR4 would like to thank GEA Consulting's President, Larry Butz,, for contributing this blog entry.