Smart Building Guidance
Smart Building Guidance
An Overlay to the RIBA Plan of Work
RIBA have published a Smart Building Overlay to support the growing demand for intelligent and connected buildings. It’s intended to support both domestic and commercial sectors by enhancing management, efficiency and sustainability with a key aim being the importance of early integration of smart building tech in the design process.
If you weren’t a subscriber until recently, be sure to have a look at previous pieces on Smart Buildings [links at the bottom].
A truly smart building doesn’t just happen by plugging in a bit of software at the end of a project - it needs careful thought (from early in the project) and sits across many different aspects of the building. It’s the need to integrate and develop smart building technology in a multidisciplinary fashion which makes it challenging… and this is where the Overlay comes in…
The Overlay addresses the multidisciplinary impact beyond just mechanical and electrical, promoting the early involvement of smart building specialists to improve design outcomes, construction efficiency, and building operation.
Smart buildings provide immediate advantages such as improved space utilisation and energy savings, with longer-term major operational benefits realised through data analysis over time. And this tech not only enhances productivity, but also offers personalised experiences for users, operational efficiencies for managers, and environmental benefits.
Hopefully you’re clear on some key tech jargon, in which case you should know that “smart buildings”, “BIM”, and “digital twins” can come together in a coordinated approach to the digital aspects of building projects. Adopting BIM enhances the delivery of smart buildings by improving coordination and communication through the design and construction phases. The creation of a digital twin is not essential for a Smart Building but can offer additional advantages - remember, digital twins generally consist of asset twins (digital replicas of physical assets and BIM data) and performance twins (usage and operational data).
The better all this is understood by the project team, the more likely these things will integrate with each other resulting in a well considered project solution.
