Pictures of the Future      Fall 2008

Living for Tomorrow

Siemens’ High Performance Building Project is harnessing the intellectual power of top researchers and universities to develop new visions of tomorrow’s buildings.

The idea that a building is an inanimate structure consisting of four walls and a roof is giving way to something new. Today’s standards in building systems, particularly when it comes to industrial and public edifices, call for  maximum comfort, optimal security, and intelligent energy use.

And that’s just the beginning. State-of-the-art building technology integrates lighting, water, heating, and air conditioning, as well as information systems. It also supports the interchange of data concerning lighting, temperature, ventilation, air conditioning, and energy. As a result, houses and public buildings are evolving into complex technological organisms. Indeed, totally self-sufficient residential complexes are already in the planning stage at a number of locations.

In April 2008, Siemens Corporate Technology (CT) launched its High Performance Building project—a three-year program in which experts from thirteen CT Departments and the Building Technologies (BT) Division will collaborate with researchers from eight universities and research institutions, including the University of California at Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, Munich’s Technical University, and the Fraunhofer Society.

Headed by Vladimir Zahorcak of Siemens Corporate Research (SCR) in Princeton, New Jersey, the project is designed to seamlessly network the expertise needed to design tomorrow’s advanced buildings.

The project brings together important cross-disciplinary technologies such as sensor systems, automation, security technologies, and remote maintenance. "Our objectives go well beyond reducing energy consumption or conserving resources such as water. We will be looking at new ways to optimizing the entire life cycle of tomorrow’s buildings," says Zahorcak, who heads the Automation division at Siemens Corporate Research.

The Project Covers Three Key Areas:

^? Building technologies and their comprehensive control functions. These are a building’s least visible features. State-of-the-art heating, air-conditioning, and water supply and treatment systems not only ensure a comfortable environment, but also reduce energy costs.

But even the most efficient heating and water systems are of little use if the building exteriors continue to be built the way they have been for centuries. The new trend is called "smart building envelopes"—intelligent outer layers made of nanomaterials that can actually be electronically managed. With this concept in mind, High Performance Building researchers plan to control the amount of light admitted by windows to help optimize internal temperature control.

^? Optimizing the life cycle. This includes a lot more than just a building’s design, construction, and maintenance. Here, the key concept is the service life of construction materials—as defined by, for example, the Building Information Model (BIM), the standard planning tool used in the U.S.—as well as the demolition and recycling of those materials. This three-dimensional model includes all available data that pertain to the functionality and properties of building elements.

"If we succeed in consolidating all of these parameters in a single model, we’ll be able to more precisely quantify and optimize building elements, including technical systems," says Zahorcak. Finally, business management is another key factor in addition to operational efficiency in the product life cycle.

Large, self-sufficient residential complexes, such as so-called EcoBlocks. Architects and urban planners expect different challenges in newly industrialized countries. So-called Superblocks designed for tens of thousands of people, like the ones already being developed in China, could turn into problem areas unless they are designed with the environment in mind.

As an alternative, Harrison Fraker, an architect and Professor of Environmentally Compatible Design at the University of California, Berkeley, has designed EcoBlocks and convinced a developer to use that approach in QuingDao, China. "The residential blocks now being planned in QuingDao will be equipped with the most advanced environmental technology. Consisting of up to ten thousand apartments per section, buildings will be equipped with water purification systems, solar and wind technologies for energy production, a refuse incineration system, and their own sewage treatment plants. "Although the blocks will be connected to the external power grid, the ultimate goal is to maximize their self-sufficiency and approach zero emissions," says Zahorcak.

Self-Sufficiency for Sale. Fraker’s concept perfectly complements the High Performance Building project. In the future, Siemens could supply or develop all the technologies that contribute to the self-sufficiency of an EcoBlock. "That’s another important objective of the project," Zahorcak emphasizes. "At CT we analyze which technologies already exist in the Siemens product spectrum and which ones need to be developed to support the implementation of such building projects."

Construction work in QuingDao is slated to begin next year. Over the course of the next three years, Zahorcak’s High Performance Building team plans to demonstrate what such buildings can do through a number of new examples.
                                                                                                               Klaudia Kunze