Build for the future: Designing Smart Buildings in the Age of AI

It is difficult or impossible to control many of the variables that affect building performance. Each building has variations in usage, occupant behaviour, and external factors like weather patterns that can change over time.

Given the many parameters that influence a building after the build, how can architects anticipate all likely scenarios and truly deliver optimum performance? Architects can utilise data on construction costs, schedules, and constructability, often integrated through BIM and common data environments like Trimble Connect, to ensure designs are buildable and within budget.

1. More Control, More Choices
   

   We now have so many amazing new technologies to make buildings perform better. Because of this, design is more important and complicated than ever. Even the best new building tech won't work well if it's not designed and put together properly from the start. Good design means everything fits together perfectly for great results.

   
   

   

   Factoring shading, daylight and weather conditions will impact energy efficiency

   
   

2. Sustainable Design for Buildings
   

   Buildings are responsible for as much as 39% of global carbon emissions and building owners should consider retrofitting existing buildings. It is important for us to find ways to reduce our global emissions and we can do so by prioritising how we can improve the performance for new buildings.

   

   Efficient buildings can help reduce operating costs

   The UN expects global urbanization to increase by nearly 2.5 billion people between now and 2050, increasing the concentration of people in our cities by over 60%. All these people need homes and buildings to live and work. With such a phenomenal amount of building activity ahead of us, we need to get to very high-performance standards quickly.

   
   

   To achieve net-zero emissions, rapid transformation will be required across all industries. Architects should design buildings that can optimise energy efficiency and also learn and adapt to occupant preferences and changing environmental conditions. By making smart technologies an integral part of the initial design concept, architects can ensure that the building's intelligence truly enhances comfort, productivity, and sustainability, rather than being an afterthought.
   

3. How forms determine performance

   Building shape/form alone can influence energy use by 10 to 15% on a typical building project. Combine that with the influence of glazing, which can often influence building performance in the 15-25% range.

   

   
   

   When considering daylight performance, we can create buildings that deliver a much better occupant experience without additional capital cost. In the case of the Iowa Nest project, changing the building’s form cut construction costs in half and achieved a 30% reduction in heating and cooling loads.

   
   

4. Designing with sustainable budgets in mind

   In a futuristic nirvana, we can quickly put the very best technology to work in every part of a building. But in the real world, we constantly have to make choices around tradeoffs, and in particular, we have to be cognizant that the vast majority of the world's buildings will not instantaneously have budgets for installing the highest-performing technology. We need to be very smart at deploying capital on building projects by crafting designs that carefully balance all the conflicting priorities using the least possible capital.
   

5. Tools that unlock the future of sustainable building design

   
   

   Software like PreDesign helps architects / designers make good decisions from the earliest stages, while Sefaira provides in-depth performance analyses on building designs.

   
   

   

   Sefaira is a software that integrates with SketchUp to provide energy, comfort, and daylight metrics for your designs

   When we combine advances in cloud computing, building physics, and user interaction design, we can make software that can analyze design performance in real time so that it can be embedded directly into the design process itself. This makes it easier than ever for the architect to use important building performance metrics to create a building design that is sustainable, functional, and beautiful. 
   

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At its heart, Trimble's ecosystem revolves around the concept of a Common Data Environment (CDE). This is a centralized, cloud-based platform where all project-related data – from design models and drawings to financial records and field reports – is stored, organized, and shared.

The goal is to eliminate data silos, reduce manual data entry, and ensure that everyone involved in a project is working with the most current and accurate information. To learn more about Trimble Connect and Connected Construction, please reach out to us for a personalised consult. If you are interested in Sefaira, read more here.