“That will never work, I used to work in FM and any person in a group of 10 will want a different environment so we will always get systems confused and

failing as they attempt to deliver to everyone’s expectations. We as designers are constrained by budgets so we can only provide a certain amount of control within any budget. Todays BMS systems are also not intelligent or robust enough so we have interoperability problems. I’m thinking occupant to BMS – to the HVAC system and potentially back to the occupant, you would need an IT system and completely different software architectures. Seems we would be over complicating the building and for it to become so intelligent it fails.”

Engineer 4 – “It’s really down to intelligence in use I think. Typically on a BMS system you may offer some manual operation but it needs to be managed by the BMS. We will never satisfy everyone all the time. For HVAC systems, air distribution is key and this is where we see most issues. The 2^nd part of your question, systems that learn intelligent, I think is very important, but current BMS systems are not intelligent enough to integrate and operate at this level so some real work to be done here by the BMS OEM’s.”

Engineer 5 – “It’s funny, I work from home a lot and my home office/study is much hotter than the office here, but I accept it and adapt. Strange don’t you think, we accept one thing at home, but expect more when we come into the office.”

Researcher 1 - “There is so much variation between people that you cannot satisfy all the people all the time and compromises need to be made. When we design systems we tend to design zones too big, we therefore need to look at providing individual control or some other form of granular intervention to the occupant conscious that the variation exists. I don’t believe we have our thresholds right for thermal comfort even now, and I think we need more individual environments to satisfy occupants and reduce energy usage”

Researcher 2 - “Similarly to the lighting system there are complications when so many individuals are involved in sending signals. I see many conflicts occurring which even with an intelligent system I am not sure todays BMS or lighting system will cope. The fundamental issue in my opinion, is how do we satisfy the many unless they have individual environments at the workplace, or does the workplace need to fundamentally change as we are seeing with hot desking and agile working. The different transitionary environments are now becoming the norm and we are not in one place all the time so do we need extensive BMS and HVAC systems I don’t have one at home. It’s a window opener, a single thermostat, timers, light switches and some TRV valves, but they all have one thing in common a simple personal interface me”

Researcher 3 – “Its hard work trying to keep everyone satisfied all the time. I have noticed that females seem to be human sensors and can tell the differences between temperatures in different areas such that when I check the temperature they are invariably correct.”

Researcher 4 – “I think it’s difficult within open plan offices as it’s an individual thing.

Not just gender difference, but age and background comes into play. Individual characteristics will dictate differences and different responses, so we would probably need some form of democratic response and decision making within the building controls. I suppose it would good to have some sort of feedback to the facilities manager at least, but my concern is the intelligence within the building controls and them being able to sufficiently differentiate accurately and consistently across multiple agents within the same space. A feedback loop would be a useful to enable aggregated data to be fed back to the occupant, this would provide as to why the temperature or the environment is performing as it is. I think this would be a very useful response to placate people who are frustrated, a sort of democratic decision making and convergence of being”

Maintenance 1 - “Good question…..I would say no to control, but yes to some form of learning, providing it doesn’t over complicate the BMS systems, they are fickle enough as it is. We find building users or occupants as you call them, want feedback, whether its personal or via an email to say their complaint is being or has been actioned. If there was some way to provide direct automated feedback that would certainly help the Helpdesk issue.”

Maintenance 2 - “We see this constantly in our day to day delivery of building engineering FM services, it’s our biggest headache. Some degree of intelligent learning would be good, but we have such a diverse industry with many protocols I’m not sure we can make this work without some standardisation within the controls

packages used. Direct occupant control depends upon the installed systems and their extent of coverage across a floor plate, giving everyone control will need some averaging controls and feedback otherwise it could get a little chaotic and frantic stressing the occupants even more. We need to be very careful in how much control we offer users.”

Maintenance 3 – “Direct user control definitely not, the ability of even todays BMS systems to handle data is poor, giving them multiple inputs would need a complete re-think of how we interact with buildings. I think we should give feedback to the user on how the building and the relevant areas are maintaining set parameters, but that’s it. Nothing elaborate a simplified version of the BMS system. To learn intelligently yes, I think some element of artificial intelligence would be very useful based upon trending and data analysis. Linking user requests, HVAC systems and building performance would be a great idea, and then calculate an adjustment and then feedback to the user would be a good step.”

Maintenance 4 – “Yes I do in terms of intelligent learning then using algorithms we predict future user requirements somehow. The problem is the control functionality though, again why do we want it. Let’s look at want users want or need, then get the building to interact and feedback what it’s doing rather, than getting multiple users to try and control it. If the building could sense my needs wouldn’t that be good, then all I need to know is that the building is working to achieve those needs….brilliant. Don’t think I need to say anymore, that’s what we need I think, but we don’t have it yet.”

Maintenance 5 – “Yes and No is the simple on the fence answer. I think we are getting better designs now and people are seeing a connection from home to the office, but the workplace needs to be commissioned and maintained properly if we are to provide an average performance across thermal comfort. We have direct occupant control at various levels now, but I suppose you are inferring about autonomous user interfaces and for the local area they occupy. This is difficult with so many different user requirements. Rather than give direct control, I think it would be better to have direct user feedback, and by that I mean the building reacting to set preferences and then telling the user of the space how it is performing to achieve those preferences.”

4.2.4 Intelligent Building Controls (Q4)

Architect 1 – “I’m not sure what the real advantage would be. Seeing the Hive Home Controls for your home heating – have we not gone too far with APPs, why control things remotely at home what happens when it doesn’t work or there is an issue with the system. There needs to be a consensus of thinking. First, a protocol and a vision to what is the ideal level of control and second some form of user occupant feedback strategy. BMS are not intelligent enough at the moment, until they change let’s keep it simple.”

Architect 2 – “We have manual control over all other systems lighting, window vents and heating to our area only, but that is all we need providing the central systems are operating as timed.”

Architect 3 – “As I said earlier not sure technology is the real answer. I’m a bit of Luddite when it comes to control philosophy, I like the keep it simple approach with manual intervention within the design and operation of the building. I like the idea of the integration through technology, but it’s what level of intelligence do we actually need to satisfy what occupants actually want.”

Architect 4 – “Lighting, temperature and ventilation are relative to what occupants can have active control over. They cannot control humidity directly or the air quality, so we seem to be constrained to controlling the basics when perhaps we should consider the total aspects of workplace systems. If occupants respond to workplace factors, then we need to give them total control. The dilemma however is to achieve this for everyone and to avoid the conflict between different users. BMS are not yet intelligent enough to deal with such data requirements nor do they seem to have sufficient sensors or coverage. I wonder what would happen if we lost all aspects of intervention would we have resilient spaces that are reliable or spaces that become over complicated and unusable. Technology is great but rubbish when it doesn’t work, everything stops.”

Architect 5 – “Today, and if we were going to provide a system interface, then I think it needs to be phone or ICT App based, this is what people are becoming more familiar with and seem to want. There will however in my opinion be an issue with people adjacency and some level of conflict, but we just need to educate people to communicate and to manage themselves within the workplace. It’s not just about building physics to solve the environmental problem, it’s about people learning how to interact with their local environment. What we need in my opinion s something akin to the luxury car where you set the parameters you like and tend to feel comfortable, the you have an interface were you can adjust if required. Designers need to focus on what’s important and not to over complicate the options you have to control

things. When a building is occupied people should respond and integrate with the building and the building and the user should control the environment. When the building is empty then the building systems should simply react to achieve a prescribed set condition and then close everything down to save energy. Buildings need to learn when the building is just a building.”

Engineer 1 – “I don’t think its good idea for direct occupant control, we should let the building control to its optimum design parameters. For intelligent controls, the building needs to learn daily and seasonally then somehow calculate the best optimum performance to suit the occupant requirements. So I suppose their needs to be some control interface, but perhaps it’s more of an advisory nature to the occupant and for the BMS to acquire data to correlate the environment to user expectations. A sort of pseudo control and feedback scenario, but I don’t know how we will achieve that with todays BMS systems.”

Engineer 2 – “I don’t think we should transcend to the individual as I mentioned earlier, what I think we should have is better functional environmental monitoring and control. Coupled with different areas and systems to create different environments, I think we should learn to naturally adapt to our environment with control only being released when it reaches pre-defined limits. The building should feedback to the end-user with the end-end-user being alerted to make an intervention rather than simply waiting for the environment to create an issue that then impacts individual performance.”

Engineer 3 – “Personally I would like to be able to control the lighting around me in terms of colour, intensity and lighting level, and I would like to able to control the temperature, but that’s a personal view and not my FM view. If I give 500 people say control of the lighting and temperature in a building today, the systems would probably crash and then productivity would be impacted as a consequence of the designer over complicating the buildings control system. Our clients would not be thanking us for that.”

Engineer 4 – “Yes I would like to see more controls being offered to the occupant,