High-performance design, big data and energy management: Three critical aspects of smart buildings

Emphasised by the current economic climate, today's property owners and managers are tasked with squeezing every dollar they can out of their facilities, planning and budgets. Given the global environment, energy purchasing and management are hot topics with everyone and high-performance building planning and design are key to maximising operational energy savings and overall high-performance building design goals. Standardising and benchmarking facility data and metrics to best gauge and guide the steps to high-performance goals and achievement are not easy tasks. Central to this strategy is a whole building and continuous data commissioning environment, which supports more meaningful ongoing operations, maintenance and as-built and facilities information, as a cornerstone of performance benchmarking. Data are just data until they become useful information. This transformation of useful data begins with a shared vision, strategy, practical standards, execution planning and implementation that includes the owner's high-performance design goals. Interoperability across multiple data authoring, analysis and management platforms such as building information modelling (BIM), geographic information systems (GISs), computer-aided facility management (CAFM) and integrated workplace management systems (IWMSs) is critical to data, locations and business intelligence integrity. This paper will discuss best practices, current technology and processes of how high-performance building design, data capture and management are best defined and utilised.