Smart Buildings & People

Posted on October 18, 2013 by Doug King

Back in October I was invited to Westminster to brief The Parliamentary and Scientific Committee about Smart Buildings. I chose to talk about Smart Buildings and People. What follows is the brief written summary of my presentation which has been submitted for publication in the proceedings. The full slideshow is at the foot of the page.

Summary of a Presentation to the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee

22^nd October 2013

Doug King FREng FInstP FCIBSE FEI HonFRIBA
Building Performance Consultant, Doug King Consulting
Visiting Professor of Building Physics, University of Bath

Information

The term ‘smart’ is applied to a host of enabling technologies in modern buildings, the ‘smart meter’ being probably the most familiar. Examination of smart meter technology allows us to begin to understand interactions between people and technology applicable to both dwellings and commercial buildings.

The equivalent of domestic smart meters, meters that signal half hourly consumption data to the utility company, have existed for many years in commercial buildings. If equipped with an in-home display (IHD) or commercial equivalent, the building occupiers can also access the data. However, in both cases the term ‘smart meter’ is a misnomer, as the meter merely conveys information. It is up to the occupier to do something smart with that information.

In-home displays (IHDs) need to present information in context in order to be useful. A PV generation monitor (right) can be easily calibrated against the size of array to present contextualised information. It is impossibly complex to calibrate an in-home display (left) against all the variety in UK households.

The presentation of data alone is of little value without context. Stevenson and Leaman (2010) said: “It is not enough to presume that the information from ‘smart metering’ will encourage people to reduce their energy consumption any more than a car speedometer will reduce speeding.” A car speedometer provides information, but the driver must have knowledge of the speed limit in order to correctly interpret that information. Without significantly improved energy numeracy amongst the populace it is unlikely that the smart meter roll out will deliver its full energy savings potential.

Engagement

A Study by Van Dam, Bakker & Van Hal (2010) found that novelty appears to play a significant role in the savings reported in short term trials of in-home displays. Revisiting households that had previously participated in a pilot study they found that the initial savings had generally not been maintained. Moreover, the lapse rate was more or less consistent regardless of how well the participants had engaged with their in-home display during and after the pilot study.

Results of a study by Van Dam et al (2010) suggest that energy savings achieved in pilot studies of in-home displays may be transitory regardless of the level of engagement by homeowners.

The study indicates a clear lapse towards prior behaviour over time, but was unable to corroborate the hypothesis that the magnitude of energy savings achieved correlates to level of interaction with the in-home display. It is clear that, if we are to make the most of the opportunity of smart metering, we need to better understand people’s interpretation of, and response to, energy information and tailor it to their needs in both domestic and commercial situations.

Control

It is not only in-home displays that need to be designed with attention to the human interface. The control systems in commercial buildings are complex, yet the design effort put into the user interfaces is poor. Bordass, Leaman & Bunn (2007) found that: “If user controls are ambiguous in intent, poorly labelled, or fail to show whether anything has changed when they are operated, then the systems that lie behind them are unlikely to operate effectively or efficiently.”

User interfaces need to be engaging, where possible intuitive, and make it easy for individuals to do the right thing, particularly given the increasing tendency to install complex controls in domestic situations, where the understanding of control functions is already poor.

Ambiguous controls create confusion and can lead to users distrusting the system or simply ignoring subsequent useful information or control signals.

Further, if control systems do not provide building occupants with the functionality and convenience that they expect, or feel they have a right to, then they will take actions to override the control systems in order to achieve what they consider to be more favourable outcomes. Thus, it is common in commercial buildings to find thermostatic controls being used as on/off switches and for daylight sensors to be covered with sticky tape to ensure that the electric lights remain on.

Management

Building structures are designed for long lifespans, whilst smart building technologies will fail or become obsolete several times during that span. As with any information technology system, it is essential that a clear upgrade path is available and is followed throughout the life of the building. All too often, building controls are allowed to become obsolete, making subsequent repair prohibitively expensive and leading to the controls being abandoned.

Completed in 1997 as an exemplar of energy efficiency, The BRE Environmental Building featured external shades which were designed to respond automatically to changing daylight and over-heating conditions. However, over time the state of the art control system became obsolete and the actuators progressively failed and were not replaced. Instead, simple manual blinds were installed to control glare and overheating. Today, the louvres remain static and the building’s occupants rarely adjust the blinds, even when daylight levels fall, as the lighting controls compensate by bringing the lights on even in the middle of the day.

Cohen, Ruyssevelt, Standeven, Bordass & Leaman (1998) wrote: “The myth of [building] intelligence is that it is ‘fit and forget’: buy it, and the electronics will do the rest. The actuality is that it is very much ‘fit and manage’. Complex engineering and control systems tend to work best in an environment in which the occupier can resource a high level of facilities and engineering management. Problems start to occur where sophisticated technology is applied in a management-poor environment.”

Design

To deliver smart buildings that sustain their smartness requires more thorough design than is presently the norm in construction. Greater interaction is needed between the building’s users and designers, both at project inception, to clearly articulate requirements, and after handover, to tune the systems and gather operational feedback. There also needs to be a much more robust system for communicating design and performance goals throughout the chain from design through delivery to operation.

Waide, Ure, Karagianni, Birling & Bordass (2013) wrote: “Building Automation Technology often fails to deliver its full potential because those specifying the system have limited understanding of how it will be operated.” They go on to assert: “The best design can only come from a thorough understanding of operation.” In order to be truly smart a building must be designed to be ‘user centric’. It needs to accommodate the habits, needs, desires and capabilities of those who will use and operate it.

People will use buildings in ways that can never be anticipated by the designers. A smart building must be flexible enough to accommodate the needs and desires of the users without forcing them into compromises, which will result in them ultimately overriding the systems.

Procurement

Mapping the typical, mass market construction process onto a systems engineering diagram (below) indicates that there are distinct gaps in the key generative areas for integrated design of smart buildings.

ConstructionSystem01

As an alternative one could propose a construction process diagram, including confirmation of performance outcomes and feedback into subsequent designs, that may be capable of delivering genuinely smart and sustainable buildings.

ConstructionSystem02

However, we need to acknowledge that the present methods of procurement in both the public and private sector do not allow the requisite interaction between users and system designers before and after the construction contract period. If we are to deliver smart and sustainable buildings we first need to address the shortcomings in the procurement process.

Conclusion

For a building to be smart, it must be designed to get the best from both its automated systems and from the intelligence and understanding of its occupants. It needs to be robust, cost-effective and not too complicated. Smart building design must account for the habits, needs, desires and capabilities of those who will use and operate them.

This creates major challenges. Although there are exemplars, in typical UK construction scant attention is paid to human factors, to the design of the product, and to the creation of properly integrated systems. Shortcuts are taken in the installation, commissioning and handover. Provision of complete operating information and user training is rare. Systems designers do not learn from performance in use.

These challenges are not insuperable. However, they will need to be addressed seriously if the potential benefits of smart buildings are to be realised. We need to significantly improve skills and education amongst the designers, constructors and operators of smart buildings. We must put the users at the heart of smart building design and operation.

“A ‘smart building’ is one that doesn’t make its occupants look stupid”
Adrian Leaman – The Useable Buildings Trust

References

Bordass, W., Leaman, A., and Bunn R. (2007) ‘Controls for end users: A guide for good design and implementation’ British Controls Industry Association report 1/2007, BSRIA
Cohen, R., Ruyssevelt, P., Standeven, M., Bordass, B. and Leaman, A. (1998) ‘Building intelligence in use: lessons from the Probe project’ Conference ‘Intelligent buildings: realising the benefits’, BRE Garston, 6-8th October 1998
Stevenson, F. and Leaman, A. (2010) ‘Evaluating housing performance in relation to human behaviour: new challenges’, Building Research & Information, 38: 5
van Dam, S. , Bakker, C. and van Hal, J. (2010) ‘Home energy monitors: impact over the medium-term’, Building Research & Information, 38: 5
Waide, P., Ure, J., Karagianni, N., Birling, G. and Bordass, B. (2013) ‘The scope for energy and CO₂ savings in the EU through the use of building automation technology’, Report for the European Copper Institute. Waide Strategic Efficiency Limited

Slides from the Presentation

Allowable Solutions Response

Posted on October 14, 2013 by Doug King

The following is my complete and unexpurgated response to the Allowable Solutions Consultation for anyone who is interested.

Response by:
Prof. Doug King FREng FInstP FCIBSE FEI HonFRIBA

This is a personal response and not on behalf of any organisation
Business Sector: Building Services Consultant
Business Size: Micro

You will receive responses to the consultation from a number of institutions and other bodies which will go into detail addressing the specific questions you have asked. I have contributed to some of these, but I feel that there is a larger issue that needs to be addressed and hence this personal response. Since it does not easily conform to the questions asked in the consultation I trust that you will forgive me for not using the response form in this instance.

The underlying aim of the legislation is surely to help deliver the requirement of 80% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from the UK. The danger in addressing such overarching goals with piecemeal legislation is in creating unforeseen precedents and perverse incentives which actually make it harder to achieve the ultimate goal. I would like us to keep the ultimate goal in mind when formulating the present legislation.

The zero carbon standard for housing that we define now will have to be valid and robust to serve us for the next four decades. By defining a zero carbon standard now which includes a high level of small scale renewable generation and Allowable Solutions we will set a precedent for the approach to be taken in zero carbon non-domestic buildings and in near-zero carbon refurbishment of the existing building stock (domestic and non-domestic).

In order to achieve the overall target we will likely need to make several incremental improvements in building energy performance. How can we define a standard for housing performance that is beyond zero carbon? That would be meaningless. Thus, if we now define a zero carbon standard that does not genuinely address zero carbon we risk depriving ourselves of any viable mechanism to reach the ultimate goal.

The combined fabric efficiency standard and carbon compliance, as proposed, will deliver a present day carbon reduction from new housing of around 70%, averaged across the stock, against the 1990 baseline.

However, the carbon compliance standard could be met by the installation of small scale renewable electricity generation. Whilst such renewable generation represents a carbon offset in the present day, the value of this offset will diminish over time, until it is close to zero, as the UK electricity supply is decarbonised in line with the national targets.

Thus, the only sustainable carbon reduction for zero carbon housing delivered by the proposed approach is actually that which is achieved by the fabric energy efficiency standards. This must be our focus. The combination of carbon compliance and Allowable Solutions must be discounted if we are to achieve a robust solution which is still delivering valid carbon reductions in 2050.

We cannot assume that carbon reduction measures which are deliverable at a reasonable economic cost in this decade or the next decade, will be sufficient to meet the 2050 carbon target alone. In fact it is becoming increasingly apparent that appropriate short-term measures to reduce carbon emissions in the next two decades may be different from the ultimate solutions in 2050 and beyond.

It is therefore vital that legislation introduced to reduce carbon emissions in this decade does not nullify opportunities for the further actions that will be necessary to meet our overall target.

The Green Construction Board’s ‘Low Carbon Routemap for the UK Built Environment’ identifies that: “It is technically possible to deliver the government’s target of an 80% reduction in carbon emissions in the built environment; however, this would require maximum uptake of technically viable solutions in all sectors, including implementation of technologies that at present do not have a financial return on investment over their lifetime.”

It should be noted that in modelling the GCB Routemap scenarios, it appears to have been assumed that all new buildings are truly zero carbon as far as emissions from the built environment are concerned. It seems that the offsets from Allowable Solutions and small scale renewable generation are delivered outside the built environment model. In other words it will require the maximum uptake of technically viable solutions within the built environment sector plus offsets from Allowable Solutions without any overlap.

Clause 2.4(c) of the Consultation Document states that “The carbon savings deriving from Allowable Solutions should be additional and over and above the carbon savings that would have been delivered without the availability of Allowable Solutions.”

We need to ensure that this is not only true for this implementation of legislation, but future ones too. We must avoid double accounting for Allowable Solutions offsets if we are to achieve the ultimate goal.

In order to deliver near zero carbon buildings across the stock it is likely that further legislation will be required in the future. The standards that we then set for zero carbon non-domestic buildings and near zero carbon refurbishments will inevitably follow the precedent we set now and we must allow them to include Allowable Solutions. Where are these Allowable Solutions to come from?

If the standard for zero carbon housing set now includes the opportunity for carbon offsetting from the existing building stock through Allowable Solutions then we risk creating a paradox when it comes to refurbishing the existing stock.

Further, under such a scenario the task of completely refurbishing the existing building stock to near zero carbon standards becomes much harder and will probably require substantial financial support. A great deal of building refurbishment can presently be funded directly as it will achieve a return on investment. However, if all the simple, low cost interventions have already been allocated against Allowable Solutions for zero carbon new buildings this will make the task of undertaking the residual refurbishment much harder and more expensive.

In summary I suggest that the structuring of Allowable Solutions is fraught with difficulty unless it is made very simple indeed.

We should not delude ourselves that achieving 80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050 can be delivered at low cost. I reiterate: delivering this target will “require maximum uptake of technically viable solutions in all sectors, including implementation of technologies that at present do not have a financial return on investment over their lifetime.”

It is a mistake to consider that the housebuilding sector is somehow exempt from taking real action on the issue of carbon reduction simply because it is considered too expensive. This is an issue that we all have to face together. The precedent set now will have repercussions on all future legislation in the built environment sector.

The penalty that the UK will pay for the construction industry not delivering on-site carbon emissions reduction will be the need to deliver greater overall low carbon generation capacity. This deficit will simply grow as Allowable Solutions are extended to new non-domestic buildings and thence to refurbishments. Simply allocating emissions reduction from one part of the built environment sector to another through Allowable Solutions will not increase the overall reduction achieved by the sector.

Logically this argument can be extended to cover any sector of the UK economy. All sectors have to achieve the same target reduction in the end. Achieving these targets will require decarbonisation of the energy supply. Thus, the only allowable solution for zero carbon or near zero carbon buildings should be direct investment in large scale, low carbon generation capacity.

Further, since the only sustainable carbon reduction will be that delivered through fabric energy efficiency standards, the calculation of offset required from grid scale low carbon generation should relate to the discounted future value of offsets of on-site electrical generation by renewables in addition to the Allowable Solutions level set in this legislation.

Corporate Sustainability Rhetoric

Posted on August 28, 2013 by Doug King

About a decade ago it became all the rage for corporations to develop Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) policies. Originally CSR was clear. It encouraged corporations to consider their impacts on the societies that quite literally sustain them. Society consumes their goods and services, provides them with staff and, especially in the case of bankers, pays for their mistakes. Initially CSR had very worthwhile aims, but now is more commonly used simply to out-worthy competitors.

So how was CSR – Corporate Social Responsibility replaced with CSR – Corporate Sustainability Rhetoric?

Well, like many aspects of business the innovators and early adopters have a clear mission and understanding of what they are doing and why. However, by the time that any new practice becomes the subject of business improvement handbooks, it simply becomes a fad that everyone has to follow in order to maintain market share. At this point the followers are simply looking for the easiest route to show compliance.

Thus CSR has gone the way of Quality Assurance (QA). In the early days both CSR and QA were business improvement activities. A CSR policy allowed business to connect with the community that supported it. A well written QA system supported and enabled the business operations. Now both of these ideals have been reduced to tick-box auditing with the simple purpose of allowing businesses to demonstrate that they are no worse than their competitors.

So, we have now reached the point of “Sustainability Accounting”. Rather than recognising that all human activity has impacts, and taking responsibility for these, sustainability accounting uses a limited set of performance indicators to demonstrate worthiness whilst often obscuring the real issues. This approach clearly has great appeal to judge by the burgeoning of sustainability or carbon consultancy.

Now I guess political leaders must also be reading these same business improvement handbooks. Because, as we know, the private sector has all the answers doesn’t it? Maybe this explains why we are seeing rhetoric replace action on sustainable development in all spheres of life, including politics and national leadership. Competing organisations in any sphere from supermarkets to governments now vie to be seen to be more sustainable than each other without actually doing anything concrete.

We need to stop obfuscating and start taking responsibility for our actions once more. To begin with, we have to acknowledge that all human activity has impacts and that these impacts may go far beyond the present sustainability indicators. We need to take responsibility for all these impacts and work to minimise or mitigate them.

We need to start taking responsibility for our resource and energy consumption, for social development, for the health of our economy and for protecting our vital biosphere. We cannot continue to cherry pick just those issues which allow us to demonstrate our worthiness in limited spheres. These responsibilities also extend across the generations. We cannot simply ignore our responsibilities because we will not be around to be held accountable by future generations.

Its time to throw out the sustainability rhetoric and put responsibility back in business!

An extended version of this article was published here: The Conversation
And Here: The Guardian Environment
And Here: 2 Degrees Network

You can comment and join in the conversation at any of these locations, or just comment below:

New Professionalism

Posted on August 7, 2013 by Doug King

Many of the institutions that I’m involved with or watch; The Edge, RIBA Building Futures, CIBSE, even universities, are presently debating what it means to be a construction professional in the 21st century. We all recognise that construction has to change to deliver the required new paradigm but we haven’t yet figured out by how much.

The main problem as I see it is that society stopped trusting the professions a long time ago. When it has become normal for patients to challenge their doctors over diagnosis or choice of treatment, you can be pretty sure that public appreciation of professionality in general has been completely degraded.

It takes considerable time and effort to become a professional. A Chartered Architect or Chartered Engineer will require around 7 years of education and employment training to qualify, similar to the qualification period for a doctor. This is not something people undertake unless they are committed to their profession.

The public interest in ethics appears to be at an all time high.

All members of professional institutions sign up to a code of ethics. These generally impose a duty on them to act in the best interests of society as a whole, not only of their clients. Yet, whilst the public is clearly interested in ethics, it seems no longer to recognise that professionality is synonymous with such ethical behaviour.

This loss of trust is reflected in many aspects of professional life. I often help evaluate applications for public funding of some sort or another. I also help assess applicants for professional qualifications. In both of these areas assessors are often urged to use their judgement to establish clear differentiation between applicants. Yet the awarding bodies deny assessors any freedom to exercise professional judgement by requiring us to follow a strict checklist process. As professional assessors we are no longer trusted to independently exercise our professional judgement.

The rise of project management in construction is another clear symptom of the death of trust in professionality. Clients, particularly in the public sector, require project managers because they no longer trust architects and designers to act in their best interests. They evidently believe that without the controlling hand of an overseer, highly trained and committed professionals would simply run amok. While it is true that there have been a number of high-profile public building debacles, the vast majority of construction professionals do in fact place the client’s interests at the forefront.

In some cases it is clear that high profile projects have gone wrong because the public sector client was unable to contain its ambition or to manage the procurement process. Equally, some of the blame in these cases must attach to the professionals who failed to advise the client properly and allowed the project to run out of control. Nevertheless, there are cases where architectural ambition has exceeded the clients budget, needs or capability. Whatever the cause, the professions as a whole are tarred with these failures.

The professions need to police themselves, and visibly so, if we are to regain the trust of society. Surely a key feature of the ethics of professionalism is the protection of the reputation of one’s entire profession? Public figures can have honours rescinded. Sportspeople can be castigated for bringing their game into disrepute. Should we name and shame the architects and engineers who blithely ignore their clients real needs or promulgate overpriced, underperforming buildings to the detriment of their whole profession? I wonder which of the professional institutions will have the ethical strength to actually enforce such a code of ethical practice?

I agree that we must find a new professionalism for construction. However I fear that unless we also address the shortcomings of the old professionalism, particularly the enforcement of existing codes of ethics and standards of professional conduct, then we will simply be constructing our houses on sand.

What is Sustainability Anyway?

Posted on August 5, 2013 by Doug King

I think that I must be getting past it, it seems that I simply don’t understand “Sustainability” anymore.

I recently found it necessary to argue in the Architect’s Journal that teaching “sustainability” as subject matter is nonsense. Sustainable designs arise from a deep understanding of the issues not by adding a separate layer of activity on top.

I’ve recently been told that I am wrong to suggest that sustainability is an inherent characteristic of a construct or system rather than an additional feature. Presumably I must be wrong because that kind of thinking jeopardises the lucrative new industry of Sustainability Consultancy.

I have also come across many discussions about what it takes to be a ‘sustainable business leader” or how to “leverage sustainability” in business. Apparently there was even a Sustainable Leadership Conversation on Twitter, which fortunately I missed completely.

Now this is what I don’t understand:

The Oxford English Dictionary defines sustainability simply as “the property of being sustainable”. It also defines sustainable as “to be capable of enduring”. Now we should all want to be sustainable shouldn’t we. Consider the antonym: unsustainable. This is where we start to expose some of the nonsense in the current jargon.

If a business is not sustainable it clearly will cease to function. Definition. A business leader who fails to lead a business sustainably will bring about the death of the business pretty quickly. Therefore the leaders of any viable businesses are sustainable business leaders. Any business that is providing a service, making a profit and investing in its future must by definition also be sustainable. That’s a lot of people and businesses, much more than the self-proclaimed.

The Oxford English Dictionary also defines the term environmental sustainability as “the degree to which a process or enterprise is able to be maintained or continued while avoiding the long-term depletion of natural resources”. So environmental sustainability is a property of a system or rate of activity, such as constructing buildings or consuming fuel. Clearly such a property can only be designed into the system or activity as it surely cannot be added as a feature afterwards.

A hero of mine, Ted Happold, once said that an engineer is someone who can do for a penny what any fool could do for a pound. To me that is the definition of sustainability pure and simple. The ingenuity of engineers delivers financial, resource and fuel efficiency as a routine part of their work. In order to continue to do what we want to do as a society we need to be able to do it whilst consuming less. Less money, less resource and less fuel.

Gordon E Moore observed that the number of transistors that engineers could pack into an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years. This ability to do more operations with less silicon has revolutionised computing and communications. Further, by increasing the capability of individual chips you reduce the overall power demand for computers and equipment. So Moore’s law predicts the increase in computing and communications capability as well as the reduced demand for electricity to run these devices.

Indeed we are now seeing the situation where electricity demands for IT are falling as obsolete equipment is replaced with new more efficient equipment. This is clearly a sustainable state of affairs, social development is accelerating whilst the cost of devices, both financial and energy are falling. This is clearly a property of the system. We simply need to balance the demand for products, to address needs not wants, with the rate at which we can safely extract raw materials.

I find myself in agreement with former CIBSE President, Prof David Fisk when he called for the word “sustainability” to be banned from technical discourse. It has become so corrupted as to not only be meaningless, but actually to obscure the real issues that we need to deal with. Lets talk knowledgeably about resources and energy consumption and social development and the economy and protecting our vital biosphere. If we are still talking about these things in 2050 then surely we will have sustained.