Poor Little Fish Basin – an emotional-feedback device for saving water.

Following from my Intelligent buildings study tour in 2010 I have written a report and published several papers on the topic as well as giving quite a few presentations. I thought it was time to write a follow-up here. The following is an abridged version of the paper I wrote for the Environment Design Guide for the Australian Institute of Architects.

Introduction

As designers, we must not forget that our designs are not inherently sustainable, only that a well designed building, if constructed and used appropriately, can support and even encourage sustainable patterns of living (Cole and Brown 2009, Challenger et al 2009).

For buildings to perform well usually requires three elements: good design, good construction and good operation (Austin and Wright 2010). Good operation is not only the responsibility of occupants because building design can influence behaviour. In this view, buildings are more than just places to live or work; they can be teachers about how to live more sustainably (Fox and Kemp 2010; Brown et al 2009). A major challenge for designers, then, is to send the right messages to occupants, through a mix of subtle and overt signs, signals and feedback.

The ability to influence occupant behaviour in buildings is well known and exploited in the design of retail spaces (Salisbury 2008; Saunders 2008; Lewis 2010). Supermarkets use bakery smells to make us hungry, and the strategic positioning of products to make us walk through as much of the store as possible, and to emphasise the higher profit items.

In my papers and presentations I have argued that this type of approach can be used for more altruistic motives than sales, and that designers should explore opportunities to support and encourage sustainable behaviour through their designs. I’d like to empower designers by presenting a conceptual framework on persuasive design and using this to review a range of building elements that seek to influence behaviour. The hope is that this will spur a new critique of sustainable building design and inspire new ideas to promote user engagement.

Behaviour Model for Persuasive Design

This section presents the conceptual framework, which was developed in the Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford University by B J Fogg (Fogg 2009a) as a tool for analysing behaviour change. The framework is designed to help understand opportunities and barriers to encouraging action using technology. It gives designers a relatively simple and accessible way to analyse a situation and respond through their designs, or to review the effectiveness of a design. The value of this approach is its simplicity and ability to organise a range of related concepts into a coherent framework.

This post applies the Persuasive Design framework to the following examples:

• Encouraging proper building use through building user guides
• Encouraging creative expression through an interactive art installation (case study: Eden Project)
• Encouraging the use of natural ventilation through user operated controls (case study: the Syracuse Center of Excellence)
• Encouraging increased cleanliness and amenity (case study: urinal fly at Schipol Airport)
• Encouraging education using interactive projections (case study: California Academy of Science)
• Encouraging environmentally friendly behaviour using building dashboards (case study: Subiaco Oval, ANU SA4 student accommodation, and Arup Melbourne office)
• Encouraging environmentally friendly behaviour using emotional feedback

These examples cover a range of target behaviours, of target audiences, of approaches and of building types. It is intended to expose readers to the range of opportunities, rather than to be an exhaustive list.

Key Aspects of the Persuasive Design Model

There are four key aspects to the Persuasive Design behaviour model.

The first is the target behaviour: i.e. what is it that you are trying to encourage the building users to do? Common sustainability goals in buildings include:

• Reduce energy use
• Reduce water use
• Increase recycling and/or reduce waste to landfill
• Increase awareness / education
• Increase physical activity
• Increase interaction and social connection between occupants
• Increase creativity

And there may be a range of specific actions that would help achieve these goals, for example shorter showers to save water, turning off lights when leaving a room, using the stairs rather than the lift etc.

The second aspect is motivation; to what extent does the building user want to perform the target action? Fogg (2009a) organises motivations into three groups: sensation, anticipation and social cohesion.

• Sensation refers to feelings such as pleasure and pain; to immediate sensations.
• Anticipation refers to expected good or bad outcomes; a sense of hope or fear.
• Social cohesion refers to social acceptance and rejection. Challenger et al (2010) similarly note that social or peer groups can have a significant influence on behaviour.

Which of these will be most effective at motivating the target behaviour depends on the specific demographic or even individual. Motivation may also change, indeed will need to change, if the target action is to become habitual[1].

The third aspect is ability – how easy is it for the building user to perform the target action? Fogg (2009b) suggests that ability is a function of the user’s scarcest resource at that moment. Resources that might be required to perform the target action include[2]:

• Time
• Money
• Knowledge
• Physical effort
• Mental effort (skill, cognitive ability, breaking old or establishing new habits or routines)

Again, which of these abilities is the limiting factor will depend on the demographic and/or individual.

Behaviour Model for Persuasive Design
(Adapted from Fogg 2009a, 2009b)

The fourth aspect is a trigger. Triggers can be categorised based on a person’s location in the motivation / ability axes (Figure above):

• Spark – Low motivation, high ability. A trigger that motivates people who already possess the ability. For example, seeing people having fun with an interactive projection or art installation, or, as will be discussed later, due to a simulated emotional response aimed at encouraging energy saving actions.
• Facilitator – high motivation, low ability. A trigger that assists people who lack ability. It could be as simple as knowledge about how to operate systems correctly conveyed through a building users guide, or knowledge about how energy is being used conveyed through a building dashboard.
• Signal – High motivation and ability. Fogg (2009a,b) suggests that when motivation and ability are both high, they create a latent condition that can be activated by a signal. An example of this, discussed later, is the mixed-mode ventilation system at the Syracuse Center of Excellence.

Those with low motivation and ability may require both spark and facilitator triggers.

Examples of Persuasive Design

Building Users’ Guides

Building users’ guides are a way for the design team to convey the design intent to occupants and explain how to operate systems correctly. They are rewarded in Green Star and advocated as part of the Soft Landings Framework[3] (UBT et al 2009).

Building users’ guide from K2 Apartments
(Source: DesignInc, Department of Human Services (Victoria), 2007)

The target behaviours of a building users’ guide could be almost anything associated with the running of a building, but all are trying to ensure the running of a building in line with its design intent.

A building users’ guide can act as a facilitator type of trigger for its target actions by providing knowledge about how things (should) work.

Building users’ guides typically do not inherently motivate people to read them – people need to be motivated in some other way to start reading the guide. This might be through interest in the building, difficulty operating an aspect of the building, or other incentives provided by relevant stakeholders. The ability of people to read the guides will depend largely on whether the guide has been written for the target audience. UBT et al (2009) suggests that guides avoid technical jargon and use diagrams. To this I would add that guides need to take into account the literacy level, native languages and cultures of the target audience. A guide for social housing should look and read differently to one for a university office building.

Building users’ guides should generally include information on the following topics (UBT et al 2009, GBCA 2008): the building systems and associated user interface, security and access, environmental performance targets, waste and recycling storage and procedures, transport options (including bike parking and public transport), and links and contact details for further information.

Interactive Art Installation

During the study tour (Healey 2010), I was fortunate enough to visit the Eden Project, in Cornwall. In the Eden Project’s education centre, known as The Core, there was an interactive art installation consisting of doors from fridges and dishwashers. These were covered with alphabet fridge magnets, with the (apparent) intention that people could write messages with them.

I suggest that the target behaviours of this installation are creative expression and social interaction. My personal motivation was fun – ‘pleasure’, in framework terminology. The novel use of old whitegoods combined with alphabet fridge magnets brought back childhood memories and encouraged a sense of playfulness. During my time there, I observed at least as many adults writing messages as children.

It is very easy for people to interact with the display. The magnets are easy to reach, require little physical effort to move around and it is free to do (once you are inside the Eden Centre). Users do not even need to be literate – some used the letters to create images.

I observed a number of triggers for the installation, including the dominant physical presence of the wall in that space (signal), curiosity as to the purpose of the letters (spark), and seeing other people interacting and having fun (spark).However I did notice a sign (spark, or perhaps anti-spark?) on a near-by roller door, suggesting a desire to put bounds on people’s creative expression.

Occupant Operated Controls

The number of mixed-mode buildings has been increasing in Australia over the past decade. Mixed-mode buildings are those that can be either naturally or mechanically ventilated, depending on the environmental conditions at the time. In some cases the control of them is fully automated, with the Building Management System (BMS) deciding when to use natural or mechanical ventilation based on sensors and its programming. In other cases, occupants are able to open windows to naturally ventilate a space. The headquarters building of the Syracuse Center of Excellence, in New York State, has a mixed-mode ventilation system that is automatically controlled in the common room and manually controlled in the office area.

The Center is a collective of companies, organisations and education institutions that investigate and develop systems related to indoor environment quality and the environmental performance of buildings. The headquarters building is a LEED platinum rated building that is designed to be a test-bed for the research of the Center (Healey 2010).

The target behaviour is for occupants to open windows and naturally ventilate the space. This should reduce energy consumption and give occupants greater connection to the outside world.

The system does not include any overt motivational strategies. It relies on occupants wanting to save energy by naturally ventilating the space. Given that the building is dedicated to research related to sustainable buildings, it is reasonable to expect that the occupants will have a high awareness of the potential benefits of natural ventilation, and therefore be intrinsically motivated.

The process of opening the window involves a number of steps. Occupants open the office door, walk out into the corridor, lift the insect screen, open the window, then close the insect screen. The air-conditioning in that zone automatically switches off when the window is open so that energy is not wasted. While this does not require much physical ability, it does require people to know the process. This will require education of new staff as they move in to the building.

The triggers for this system are an indicator light (signal) located high up in one corner of the room and a desktop notification. These items show a green light or appropriate message respectively when outside conditions are suitable for natural ventilation.

At the time of writing, the Center had been occupied for approximately eight months. The system was reported to be working correctly from a technical perspective (i.e. active systems turn-down when windows are open), while the operation of the indicator system and response of occupants are being studied in detail by researchers at the Center (Santanam, 2010).

Urinal Fly

In the men’s bathrooms at Schipol Airport, Amsterdam, you can find an interesting example of a user engagement device – it is called the urinal fly. Essentially, the urinals have a picture of a fly stuck on them in a strategic location. The company that makes them claims that they keep bathrooms up to 85 per cent cleaner (Urinal Fly 2010).

The target behaviour in this example is more accurate ‘aiming’ by users, reducing the need for cleaning and increasing amenity. The company also offers other images, such as cross-hairs, trees and rubber ducks, for use in commercial buildings or to help children with potty and toilet training (Urinal Fly 2010).

The motivation in this case is subtle and doesn’t easily fit with Fogg’s (2009a,b) categories. The closest I could suggest is pleasure, although this may give the wrong impression of men’s habits at urinals. Typical urinal users do not want to make a mess and therefore tend to aim roughly in the right direction in the first place. The urinal fly helps them aim in the optimum location to prevent splashback.

The trigger (signal) is simply the sight of the fly in the urinal. It would seem that many males are already sub-consciously motivated and able to aim at something if presented with the opportunity.

Interactive Projections

On a recent study tour I saw two examples of interactive projections (Healey 2010). The first was at Newark Airport (New Jersey, USA) and was of an underwater scene. Fish were swimming around and as people walked past the whole image rippled. I could not discern what the target behaviour was for this installation; the best I could suggest is that it is a way to pass the time while you wait for your plane.

The other example I saw, at the California Academy of Science, had a much clearer purpose.

The California Academy of Science is a multi-disciplinary museum and research institute located in San Francisco. Among the various exhibits is an interactive projection of a Madagascan forest floor, including plants, leaves, logs and insects.

The target behaviour is to educate children (and adults) about the insects of Madagascar. The motivation to engage was most definitely pleasure. Many children (and some adults) spent a lot of time laughing and chasing insects around the floor. The ability for people to interact with the projection was high, however, the ability for people to do this as intended by the exhibit designers though seemed to be low. It was very easy make parts of the projected image move – leaves and insects, however, very few people seemed to be following the intent of the exhibit of catching the insects in order to activate the instructional video. Most people (the author included!) simply tried to stand on the insects.

The trigger for engaging with the exhibit was the spark of seeing the projection and other people enjoying it. The facilitator trigger for using it properly though, was a sign located nearby. In this case, the spark of the projection and people was much stronger than the facilitation of the sign. This could be because the sign was far more passive than the projection and people. Also, the sign may not be the best form of instruction because for children, who were by far the most common users of the exhibit, it would have generally required an adult to read the sign and pass on the instructions to them.

Building Dashboards

There is increasing interest in providing feedback to building occupants in the form of dashboards. These are typically displays located in prominent areas, or web interfaces that give charts on energy consumption, water consumption etc. As Austin and Wright (2010) note, quantitative data combined with relevant benchmarks can greatly assist good building operations. With sensors, computers, and data storage becoming smaller, cheaper and more powerful, there is an increasing number of companies offering dashboard systems.

In residential applications, various studies have found energy savings of between 0 and 15 per cent, depending on whether the feedback is direct or indirect, and the time delay between the energy consuming action and the feedback (Darby 2006, Ehrhardt-Martinez et al 2010). Savings of this magnitude make these types of systems very attractive as ways of influencing users. Three examples are discussed here, WA Football Commission, Australia National University SA4 student accommodation, and Arup’s Melbourne office. One thing that these three examples have in common is the use of what might be called socio-technical approaches (Challenger et al 2010), i.e. they combine persuasive technology and social interventions.

ANU SA4 Student Accommodation

During 2010, a project team including the ANU, Alba Capital, Nettleton Tribe architects and Arup prepared a performance brief for a new 500-apartment student accommodation building just outside the Canberra CBD.

ANU’s goal for the project was for it to have a number of green features and to engage the occupants. One of these features, specified in the performance brief, is a dashboard system, giving feedback on energy use and generation, water use and collection, and movement of people up and down the main stair case. The target behaviours, at least initially, are just good energy and water saving practice such as turning lights offs, short showers etc.

The dashboard system enables the operator of the building, Unilodge, to motivate (spark) students and give them the ability (facilitator) to take action. Petersen et al (2007) note that because dormitory residents typically pay a flat rate that includes utilities, there is not a financial incentive for them to be resource efficient. Some students may already be motivated by environmental concerns, though, and by having access to feedback, may take action themselves.

To encourage the target behaviours in more of the residents, Unilodge will run competitions (spark) and other related education activities. The dashboard system will likely also have the ability to communicate using twitter and other new media, which is expected to provide better engagement with the student demographic.

Arup Office Realtime Display

Challenger et al (2010) note that aligning persuasive technology and organisational initiatives can help encourage behavioural change. This is something that Arup’s offices will be trialling from early 2011. In 2010, Arup’s Australian offices became ISO 14001 certified. Objectives under the EMS relate to energy, water, waste and recycling, paper use and office products.

To help track progress, motivate performance towards these targets and encourage awareness of transport options, a dashboard system has been set up that will display: energy usage per floor, paper usage from photocopiers and printers, the number of computers that are on, the Yarra Trams tram tracker[4]  for nearby stops, and air travel.

Emotional Feedback

The final set of examples also provides feedback, but in contrast to the quantitative feedback of the dashboards, these examples are emotive. Whereas dashboards use numbers and benchmarks to provide feedback on whether performance is good or bad, these examples tap into intuitive emotional cues (or at least the designers hope so).

The examples provided below are research or design propositions; however this type of approach is also being used in real applications. For example, new Ford hybrid vehicles will have dashboards that can give feedback on driving efficiency using of a leafy vine, which grows more lush and healthy if the car is driven efficiently (Ideo 2009). Perhaps we will see a digital tree representing a building’s environmental performance, similar to the Ford dashboard vine, in an office lobby in the future?

Virtual Polar Bear

An example for behaviour in buildings is the use of a virtual polar bear pet on an iceberg (Dillahunt et al 2008). The iceberg increased in size when test subjects reported that they had performed environmentally responsible actions and shrunk when they did not perform those actions. A number of strategies were used to strengthen the connection between subjects and their virtual pet, including: information on the impact of climate change, getting subjects to name their pet, and encouraging personal reflection. The study showed that test subjects reported increased environmentally responsible behaviour.

Poor Little Fish

A second example is a sink with a gold fish bowl, including fish, on top of it – the designer calls this the Poor Little Fish Basin (Lu 2010). The target behaviour of this device is for people to turn the tap off as soon as possible. It is reasonable to expect that if someone could turn the tap on, then they will have the ability to turn it off. The interesting aspect is how it motivates (spark-trigger). When the tap is turned on, the water level in the fish bowl begins to drop. The water in the bowl is not connected to the tap, rather the level is adjusted to give the impression that it is. Yu’s (2010) aim was to make consumption tangible and emotive.

iCat

The third example is the iCat by Philips. The iCat is a desk-top robot for studying human-robot interaction. It uses motors to control different parts of the face, such as the eyebrows, eyes, eyelids, mouth and head position, so that it can simulate different facial expressions (Philips 2005). This has been used in a range of research; the example here is in relation to programming a washing machine for maximum efficiency.

The target behaviour was for test subjects to programme the washing machine to be most efficient for the laundry load described (Midden and Ham 2009). To give participants a base level of motivation, they were instructed to use as little electricity as possible and informed that washing uses electricity. Participants were also given instruction and trial runs at programming the washing machine so that they had the ability to use the machine efficiently. Participants were then asked to programme for a particular washing type (e.g. washing dirty jeans). The spark was delivered via the simulated emotional response of the iCat robot. The iCat used a combination of facial expressions (movement of mouth, ears, eyebrows), illuminated eyes (red or green) and speech recordings, to convey a positive or negative emotion in relation to the energy efficiency of the washing machine’s programming. Interestingly, the researchers compared this against purely quantitative feedback with an energy meter. Midden and Ham (2009) report that the emotional feedback from the iCat had a greater impact on behaviour than the quantitative feedback, and that negative emotional feedback had a stronger effect than positive.

Conclusion

It is possible for designers to support and encourage sustainable behaviour in buildings. The range of examples shows that the possibilities are limited only by imagination; with it possible to achieve engagement with low-cost, low-tech designs such as the fridge magnet wall at the Eden Project, as well as high-tech installations like interactive projections.

It is also possible to provide feedback to people in various ways, from the quantitative charts of a dashboard to the emotive feedback of an iCat. The conceptual framework presented and used to analyse the examples was shown to be a simple but effective way of reviewing persuasive designs.

All our designs are teaching or reinforcing behaviours in building occupants, the question to ask ourselves is: what messages are we sending? With Persuasive Design, we can begin to answer that question.

Footnotes

[1] As a person performs the action multiple times, their location on the motivation-ability scale is likely to change. For example, their ability may increase because they are developing the skill to perform that action. Conversely, there could be examples where their motivation decreases because the target action becomes irritating.
[2] Fogg (2000) includes social deviance under ability, however I suggest that this is better considered as part of the social cohesion scale on the motivation axis.
[3] The Soft Landings Framework is a process that is gaining popularity in the UK. It seeks to strengthen the links between the procurement process, initial occupation and longer term monitoring and review. Ultimately it is aimed at facilitating continuous improvement in the built environment by more effectively exchanging information between designers, facility managers, building owners and occupants, and encouraging the learning and sharing lessons about how to do things better.
[4] This is a realtime tram timetabling system.

References

Abrahamse, W., Steg, L., Vlek, C., Rothengatter, T. (2007) The effect of tailored information, goal setting, and tailored feedback on household energy use, energy-related behaviors, and behavioral antecedents, Journal of Environmental Psychology, 27, p.265–276

Advanced Environmental (2009) University Of Melbourne Economics & Commerce Building – Building Users Guide, prepared for the University of Melbourne, available at www.pcs.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/148696/EC__Building__Users__Guide.pdf, accessed 12/12/10

Austin, B., and Wright, D. (2010) Building performance feedback to promote behavioural change, The Arup Journal, Issue 1/2010, p.20-21

Bordass, B., Leaman, A., Bunn, R. (2007) Controls for End Users, Building Services Research and Information Service. Available at www.bsria.co.uk/bookshop/books/controls-for-end-users-a-guide-for-good-design-and-implementation-bcia-12007/?v=306&search=controls+for+end+users&section=bt

Brown, Z., Dowlatabadi, H., Cole, R. (2009) Feedback and adaptive behaviour in green buildings, Intelligent Buildings International, Issue 1, p.296-315

Cole, R. and Brown, Z. (2009) Reconciling human and automated intelligence in the provision of occupant comfort, Intelligent Buildings International, Issue 1, p.39-55

Challenger, R., Clegg, C., Davis, M. And Jofeh, C. (2010) Understanding and promoting “green behaviour” in the use of existing buildings, The Arup Journal, Issue 1/2010, p.19

Cheng, I. (Ed) (2010) Active Design Guidelines – Promoting physical activity and health in design, City of New York, Available from http://ddcftp.nyc.gov/adg/, accessed 28/5/10

Dillahunt, T., Becker, G., Mankoff, J., and Kraut, R. (2008) Motivating Environmentally Sustainable Behavior Changes with a Virtual Polar Bear, Pervasive 2008, May 19-22, Sydney, Australia

Fogg, B. J. (2009a) BJ Fogg’s Behavior Model, Stanford University, available at www.behaviormodel.org/, accessed 12/12/10

Fogg, B. J. (2009b) A Behavior Model for Persuasive Design, in the Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Persuasive Technology, Claremont , CA, USA — April 26 – 29. Available at http://portal.acm.org/ft_gateway.cfm?id=1541999&type=pdf&CFID=251660&CFTOKEN=79292866

Fox, M., and Kemp, M. (2009) Interactive Architecture, Princeton Architectural Press, New York

GBCA (2008) Technical manual – Green Star office design & as-built version 3, Green Building Council of Australia.

Healey, G. (2010) Intelligent Buildings study tour blog, Arup, available at http://fieldsofactivity.com/buildings/intelligent-buildings-study-tour/, accessed 12/12/10

Ideo (2009) Hybrid electric vehicle interaction for Ford motor company, Ideo, available www.ideo.com/work/hybrid-electric-vehicle-dashboard-interaction, accessed 27/5/10

Lewis R. (2010) Supermarket Psychology, Weight Watchers website, available at www.weightwatchers.com.au/util/art/index_art.aspx?tabnum=1&art_id=36461&sc=3017, accessed 12/12/10

Lu, Y. (2010) Poor Little Fish, available at www.yanlu.com, accessed 8/12/10

Midden, C., Ham, J. (2009) Using Negative and Positive Social Feedback From a Robotic Agent to Save Energy, Claremont , CA, USA — April 26 – 29. Available at http://portal.acm.org/ft_gateway.cfm?id=1541966&type=pdf&CFID=1659751&CFTOKEN=13057961

OoH (2007) K2 Apartments (Tenant education kit), Department of Human Services – Office of Housing, available at www.housing.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0017/166022/k2_apartments_tenant_report.pdf, accessed 12/12/10

Petersen, J., Shunturov, V., Janda, K., Platt, G., and Weinberger, K. (2007) Dormitory residents reduce electricity consumption when exposed to real-time visual feedback and incentives, International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, Vol. 8 No. 1, pp. 16-33

Philips (2005) iCat user-interface robot, Philips Research, available at www.research.philips.com/technologies/projects/robotics/downloads/icat.pdf, accessed 12/12/10

Philips (2010) iCat image, Philips, available at http://www.research.philips.com/newscenter/pictures/downloads/systsoft_userinterfaces_01-0_h.jpg, accessed 12/12/10

Salisbury, C. (2008) The psychology of supermarkets, 666 ABC Canberra, available at www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2008/08/29/2350161.htm, accessed 12/12/10

Saunders, A (2008) Trends – Environmental psychology and retail design, interview with Mark de Teliga, By Design, 15^th March, ABC Radio National. Available at www.abc.net.au/rn/bydesign/stories/2008/2188360.htm

Santanam, S. (2010) Deputy Executive Director of the Syracuse Center of Excellence, personal communication, email to the author 14/12/10.

UBT, Way, M. And Bunn, R (2009) The soft landings framework, Usable Buildings Trust and Building Services Research and Information Service, available at http://www.bsria.co.uk/download/soft-landings-framework.pdf, accessed 23/12/2009

Urinal Fly (2010) Home page, available at www.urinalfly.com/default.aspx, accessed 12/12/10

[Above: Arup Office Realtime]

We just launched Arup Office Realtime, a data visualisation designed around the firm’s sustainability objectives. Office Realtime is a system that presents live data streamed to our offices and includes paper usage, electricity consumption, transport updates, carbon generated by air travel and more…

For nearly two years, Andrew Maher, myself and countless other Arupians dotted around the globe have discussed data visualisation as a way to better communicate the content we create on projects; and up until recently the challenge has been to find data or analysis results that present well and make immediate sense to the audience.  Part of the challenge with design and engineering data is that as soon as a design changes, so do the analysis results; affecting the intended visualisation immediately.  For a graphic designer to spend even a short amount of time visualising data, the results, and therefore the design, would have to remain unchanged for as long as possible.  But what about information that is already readily available and ordinarily invisible within the workplace?  And what about information that could be collected and be viewed in realtime?

[Above: Me, Andrew and Toby at the launch]

This project has some history,  around 18 months ago, Andrew Maher attended a meeting with our sustainability consultants to discuss how he could help to further develop the way they communicate their work. One of the outcomes was the 1200 Buildings data visualisation as visualisation was something clients were beginning to ask for.

Then in 2010, Gerard Healey dodged the ash cloud and undertook a world tour of intelligent buildings; those buildings in which active measures were being taken in design and operation to reduce the amount of energy consumed and to change their occupants behaviour.  Gerard sent back stories and photos for the Fields of Activity blog and it has been one of our most popular blog posts.

Soon after that, Mike Rainbow (Building Sustainability) approached Diana Coelho (Organisational Psychologist) and Andrew to help with a presentation for a new fit-out project. The client had a comprehensive sustainability strategy which was largely reliant on the building performance after the fit-out.  Mike suggested to client that we could make a small intervention to engage their staff and change behaviours – Mike’s idea was to highlight paper use in realtime and broadcast consumption back to staff. They liked the idea, but wanted to know who had done it previously – but who had done it?  No one, that we knew of.

Not long after that, as part of Arup’s Sustainability Policy (we implemented a certified Environmental Management System (ISO 14001) across the region), workshops were held for all Arup staff; an extraordinary effort in itself. One of the aims was to educate all about reducing energy and waste by at least 5% in 2011.  Following the workshops, I briefly discussed publishing paper usage with Aaron Yuen, our Key Environmental Representative in Melbourne, and Peter Bowtell, then Melbourne Office Leader, via the intranet. Andrew was having similar discussions with the same and many other people, including public transport companies, but on a much, much more grand a scale.  (At least twice a year, I feel like working with Andrew is a bit like Marconi and Tesla; we both have similar ideas, but it takes a few days, or a few weeks for us to come together and realise we’re talking about the same thing.)

[Above: Office launch]

Late last year, Andrew employed Tom Gasson, a computer science student, to start collecting the data that was available; printer usage, flights and carbon emissions region-wide, realtime computer usage, and energy data; and to start building a database, as well as using Processing to visualise the data.  He then approached Toby Welch and I about creating the web-based front-end to display the data on large LCD screens in the office entryways.  After all, what better way to encourage change than to promote current energy and waste usage to clients?  Part of Andrew’s inspiration was Sprint’s Now Network advertisement; a feat in programming perhaps, but a struggle to interpret at a glance; one has to view it as a proof of concept more than a working example.  Toby and I started to think about what we could do.

Yes, the irony of trying to reduce energy by displaying the information on large flatscreens does not escape us.  In our own defence, let’s just look at few initiatives we have had in place for the last year or more:

• Lighting in our offices is controlled by sensors.  No movement? No lights.
• All printers, including plotters, enter sleep mode after being idle for half an hour.
• In the Melbourne office, we have had a Paperless Office initiative in place for the last 4 years, and for an engineering firm, we print surprisingly few drawings.
• Provision of recycle bins for waste plastics, aluminium, and paper
• Recycling of IT equipment via a third party
• Utilisation of alternatives to air travel e.g. video conferencing
• Last year, across the region, IT rolled out mandatory overnight shutdowns for all computers.  This process can only be manually bypassed if you are still using your  computer in the hour prior to shutdown.

On top of the initiatives we already had in place, we also had specific requirements for the screens to display the information on.  They had to be LED, they had to be at least a six-star rating, and it had to be rated at less than 150W.  The screens we have since purchased are rated at 98W, around a third of a standard PC.

The initial planning of the project also enabled us to purchase energy meters to be installed in our Melbourne office.  The meters will allow energy consumption to be monitored in realtime, feed into our database, which can then allow reports to be run whenever we want or need them.

We began with a simple interface to observe and measure our data before Andrew Buckley took over the look and feel.  In the last week before the launch, we rewrote the backend code from scratch; finally settling for pure HTML5 and CSS3 and a compliant browser (Google Chrome).  We also worked on the idea that the incentive for behavioural change can be as easy as promoting healthy competition between offices.  To do this we are going to take the totals for each set of data, and work out the averages per capita for each office.  In the coming weeks, after the rollout to the east coast; we hope that people will think twice about printing those two page emails; knowing that staff in another office, on average, print 10 pages less a day than us.

[Above: The average Arupian page]

How is our custom approach to the dashboard different to a building management system (BMS)?  Building management systems are great – for building managers, but what if you just occupy one level?  Typically, BMS dashboards equate energy to cost and cost savings over time, but we wanted to show usage in terms of environmental impact, and not simply translate everything back to dollars and cents.  We’ve taken data that applies to everyone in our office, and presented it in an engaging, aesthetically pleasing way.

We’ve just rolled the Office Realtime out to the Melbourne office.  Our staff are impressed and keen to track usage over the coming months, and our Sustainability team is happy.  Very happy.  Next are launches in Sydney and Brisbane.  And all of this just to keep us conscious of how much impact we make; compared to how little impact we could make.

Want to know more?  Come see for yourself.  Did I mention that we also included public transport information on the display as well?  No?  Well that’s quite vital actually.  For staff and clients alike, as we leave the office we can now check when our tram is coming, or whether the train service is ok or not.  That’s actually one thing that our Office Realtime may not have the power to change.  Yet.

Here’s a list of the team, and without the support and enthusiasm of a larger number of people, the core project wouldn’t have happened in such a short amount of time.

Project Team:

Andrew Maher, Tom Gasson, Toby Welch, Andrew Buckley, Dean Morris &  Scott Fagg

It is the final two days of my trip and I must admit that I am ready to head home. Before leaving LA I visited the Arup office and Morphosis Architects – both of which designed the San Francisco Federal Building.

It has been a fantastic trip and I want to thank all the people I have met for making it such an education. I also want to re-acknowledge the support of the Construction and Property Services Skills Council and the International Specialised Skills Institute in providing the fellowship that started it all.

Over the next few months I will be working on disseminating my findings through presentations and a fellowship report. I’ll keep you posted when information is available.

1 June 2010 Boulder, Colorado

Today I visited the Rocky Mountain Institute in Boulder, Colorado. I shared with them my study tour findings so far and made some good contacts relating to their work on the Empire State Building.

Next stop LA, to visit the Arup office and Morphosis (architects for the San Francisco Federal Building).

24 – 27 May 2010 Santa Clara (Connectivity Week)

This week I was in Santa Clara (Silicon Valley) at a conference called Connectivity Week

The conference was focused on smart buildings and smart grids, and the interfaces between them. It would have been a computer geek’s dream – the opening keynote speaker was Vint Cerf, who was part of the original US military project that decades later resulted in the internet. He now works at Google.

Personally I learnt a lot of useful information and met lots of interesting people (including someone from Ballarat, which is about a 90 minute drive from where I grew up in country Victoria). Topics that will feed into my fellowship report include:

1. Automated fault detection and commissioning. Image (below) from presentation by Brian Thompson of Sensus MI

2. Active demand management by buildings in a smart grid (and making money from this). Image (below) from presentation by Tom Arnold of Enernoc

3. Building dashboards. Image (below) from presentation by Jim Sinopoli of Smart Buildings LLC

4. The role of systems integrators on design and construction teams, and

5. The GSA’s (US Government landlord) current work to develop smart buildings. Image (below) from presentation by Kevin Powell of the GSA

During the week I also managed to arrange a meeting for next Tuesday with the Rocky Mountain Institute to find out more about their role in the Empire State Building refurbishment, their work in general, and to give them a presentation on my trip. I’m looking forward to meeting them.

This weekend is a long weekend here in the USA, so I am heading to Yosemite National Park for some hiking and climbing (and perhaps running away from bears).

Postscript – the climbing was great and I didn’t see any bears.

19 – 21 May 2010 San Francisco

The past few days I have been in San Francisco, visiting the California Academy of Science, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBL), University of California Center for the Built Environment (CBE), and San Francisco Federal Building.
On Wednesday I visited the Academy of Science, the Renzo Piano designed LEED rated building. I met with Ari Harding, Director of Building Management Systems for the Academy. He gave me a tour of the Academy, including the green roof and plant spaces.

We also talked through the various control systems in the building, including the mixed-mode for the public spaces and for the office spaces.

Ari noted that the system for the public spaces was working particularly well because members of the public were dressed based on outside conditions. In contrast, there had initially been some complaints in the office space where people tend to dress in a more standard way throughout the year. I happened to be at the Academy on “free”day, so the place was swarming with people.

On Thursday I visited LBL and CBE. At LBL I met with Dr Michael Wetter of the Simulation Research Group, who is working on a Building Controls Virtual Test Bed (BCVTB) which is an open-source middleware that facilitates co-simulation using programs such as EnergyPlus, Radiance, Modelica and Simulink. This enables designers to more accurately simulate the performance of complex building systems. He also showed me a website that was using tools such as these to develop training aids for HVAC systems.

(Image courtesy of Michael Wetter – LBL)

I then went down the hill to the Center for the Built Environment to meet with David Lehrer, an architect and Director of Communications for the Center. We talked about the research that the center does and how this feeds back into the development of the local industry.

On Friday I visited the San Francisco Federal Building. I had read that there had been initially been many occupant complaints about the building, but Gene Gibson of the GSA and the onsite facility manager said that there are relatively few now. The GSA regularly conducts occupant surveys in their buildings, so they are getting feedback on what works and what doesn’t. They noted that the building was a significant change for the government departments who occupy it; they had moved from enclosed air-conditioned offices to open plan naturally ventilated space, which took some adjusting to. The building also has skip-stop lifts  – the main lifts stop at every third floor, at sky-lobbies, with daylight stairs up and down.

I like the building much more in real-life that I thought I would based on photos and renders I had seen. We also talked about how the building was performing and they said that its 2009 EPA Energy Star rating is 95, which from my understanding means that it is in the top 5% of buildings in the USA.
That afternoon I headed down to Santa Cruz to meet with Dan Ackerstein who has been instrumental in the development the various iterations of LEED for existing buildings. We talked about the challenges of developing an existing building rating tool and some of the key issues that should be considered.

This weekend I plan to relax in Santa Cruz. Next week, I will be attending Connectivity Week…

17 May 2010 Syracuse NY

After taking an overnight bus from Toronto, today I was in the upstate New York city of Syracuse.

There I visited the Syracuse Center of Excellence headquarters building and met with Suresh Santanam, Deputy Executive Director, and Calvin Ahn of Ashley McGraw Architects.

Suresh and I; Calvin behind the camera

The Center of Excellence (COE) is a collaboration between academic institutes and industrial partners. Suresh described the whole building as a test bed, providing the COE partners with the opportunity to conduct research and test products in an actual building. It reminded me a bit of the brief for the new Melbourne University Architecture building, which was for a living laboratory. Calvin noted providing the flexibility to enable the test bed created a number of architectural and engineering challenges, but I must say that they seem to have been well resolved.
The building has more features than I can describe in this blog, so here is a selection…
There are manual windows and traffic light system to indicate to office occupants when conditions are suitable. There is a Carrier Total Indoor Environment Quality test lab that can be used to test the effect of various indoor environmental conditions on occupants

Dedicated plant for the Carrier TIEQ lab (above)

Double glazing on the south (sun-facing) facade with interstitial blinds controlled by the BMS. The corridors on the south side of the building act as thermal buffers between the external conditions and office spaces.

Removable section of facade for testing facade technologies. Currently they are testing a solar combined heat and power system. Sun-tracking prisms focus the sun onto a PV cell and also evacuated tubes.

Pipes from the ground source heat pumps exposed with thermometers so that occupants can see and feel the flow and return temperatures.
Next stop, San Francisco…

15 May 2010 Toronto

For the past 4 days I have been in Toronto, taking a course run by the Building Owners and Managers Institute of Canada, which is the education arm of the Building Owners and Managers Association in Canada. I was also fortunate enough to be able to tour the Central Utilities and Cogeneration plant at the Toronto Airport.

The BOMI course was called Technologies for facilities management and looked at how to make a business case for technologies in buildings, as well as the impact that various buildings technologies can have on the running of a building. The course was facilitated by Bob Bieler of SNC-Lavalin O&M and attended by people in facilities management at a range of companies around the province of Ontario. I learnt a lot from the course, and particularly Bob and the other students. As a designer, it was useful to gain some insight into the FM perspective. The experience will help me to better organise a lot the other information I have gathered and will gather on this trip.

As I mentioned, on Friday morning I was fortunate to be able to get a tour of the Toronto Airport central utilities and co-generation plant (see this article in Power magazine). There I met John Thompson, Manager of Thermal Energy Systems for the airport, and John Souther, Manager of the co-generation plant. The facility provides the airport with heating, cooling and power when required using a combination of gas-fired combined cycle turbines, gas boilers, vapour compression electric chillers, and also steam driven vapour compression chillers. It was an impressive facility and by co-incidence I was there when the co-generation plant was coming online – fortunately the two Johns warned me in advance when loud noises were about to happen, so I didn’t need a change of underpants.

While in Toronto, I also played tourist and visited the CN tour, which was only a few blocks from my hotel. At 533 m, until recently it held the record of the world’s tallest concrete tower (as distinct from the tallest building -  see Wikipedia for a full discussion on tall things). The glass floor that I am lying on in the photo is at 342 metres.

Next stop, the Syracuse Center of Excellence.

12 May 2010 Ottawa

Today I travelled to Ottawa to visit the Continental Automated Buildings Association. CABA is a not-for-profit industry association whose mission is: to advance technology and integrated systems in homes and buildings, create opportunities for their members’ business activities and serve as a preferred global source of information, knowledge and networking for key stakeholders.

I met with Rawlson O’Neil King to talk about CABA’s activities. I am particularly interested in their Intelligent Buildings Roadmap and the Building Intelligence Quotient (BiQ). The Roadmap is currently undergoing its third iteration. Rawlson gave me a copy of the 2007 version, which provides great insight into barriers and opportunities related to intelligent buildings in North America.

The BiQ is a tool that rates the intelligence of a building based on the features it has. It is designed to complement environmental rating tools such as LEED and Green Star. Building proponents enter data for their building into the system and it is compared against the other similar (geographically, functionally) buildings in the database. I am in the process of reviewing this in detail to see if this can help design teams to select appropriate integration options for their projects.

Rawlson also introduced me briefly to Lise Robitaille, CABA’s director of research, and who has a background in developing education and training courses. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to talk with her today; I will definitely be contacting her to talk further about developing courses for intelligent and integrated buildings.

10 & 11 May 2010 New York City

The past 2 days I was in New York City, visiting the Arup office, 1 Bryant Park (Bank of America Building), and the Empire State Building. At the Arup office I gave a presentation on my trip so far, and met with Michael Puckett to discuss the work they are doing on existing buildings and David Dubrow who helped design the Syracuse Center of Excellence Headquarters which I am visiting next week. It was great to strengthen links with the New York Arupians and they were also kind enough to let me join their soccer team for an evening.

At 1 Bryant Park I met with Don Winston, Vice President of Technical Services for the Durst Organization, who own the building in partnership with the Bank of America. The LEED Platinum rated building stands amongst other high-rise office buildings in Manhattan. For some great photos of the building, see the project page on Cook+Fox architects webpage.
Don was kind enough to give myself and some colleagues from the Arup NY office a tour of parts of the building. The building has about 186,000 m2 of net lettable area, with the Bank of America being the anchor tenant.

The main focus of the tour was the cogeneration system, which consists of a 4,600 kW gas turbine that provides about 14,000 lb/hr of low pressure steam, supplemented by a duct burner and utility steam. In the summer and shoulder periods, the waste heat is used to meet hot water demand and to run a single effect absorption chiller. Don acknowledged that the single effect chiller is less efficient than double effect, but noted that in this case the increased efficiency was insufficient to justify the cost of providing the higher pressure steam required to run a double effect chiller. The bulk of the cooling is provided by vapour-compression chillers, with 1200 kW of ice storage used to provide cost effective load shifting and also flatten the electrical demand, which helps to make the cogeneration plant more economic.

Throughout the tour, Don emphasised the importance of robust design. He is a strong advocate for good systems that are easy to operate, rather than leading (or bleeding) edge systems that promise greater savings in theory but are more complex to commission and run. For example, the building uses a constant flow primary chilled water circuit through the chillers because of its operational simplicity compared to variable primary flow. Don noted that the energy cost penalty was not significant because the primary loop has a low pressure head.

Don’s emphasis on efficiency through effective operations also extended to the plant spaces. They are spacious and well laid out, but more than that they are well-lit and comfortable spaces to be in. Don noted that a key part of having efficiently running plant was to have happy workers who take pride in their space. The success of this approach for Durst seems to be clear; Don estimated that the building was currently using about 25% less energy than the design energy models predicted.

On the morning of the 11th I played tourist at the Empire State Building and went to the observation deck on the 86th floor. The most surprising fact I learnt from my recorded tour guide was about the mast at the top. While today it is carries broadcast masts for many New York radio and TV stations, it was originally designed to be used as a docking station for zeppelins. Unfortunately the designers did not anticipate the strong winds and it was deemed unsafe for use. (After the tour I found this image on Flickr)

After playing tourist, Michael Puckett and I met with Dana Schneider of Jones Lang LaSalle, who is engaged by the ESB as project manager for the energy efficiency upgrades under the capital works programme and to oversee the energy performance contract with Johnson Controls. Dana generously spent time telling us about the process of identifying energy saving opportunities and the status of the implementation.  The ESB’s website about their refurbishment program is here

Dana explained that a key strategy in the process was to keep everything that could be kept, rather than replacement. Hence the chillers were refurbished rather than replaced, so to the windows. Overall, 8 initiatives were selected for implementation from a larger list; 5 of these are under an energy performance contract (EPC) with Johnson Controls, while the other 3 are by the Empire State Building. The 5 under the EPC are: chiller retrofit, installation of insulation behind under-window radiators, refurbishing the windows, upgrading of the BMS system, and tenant sub-metering. The other 3 are: upgrading the constant volume air handling units to variable volume, installation of demand-controlled ventilation, and upgrading of lighting in base-building areas.

At least one tenant has whole-heartedly embraced the new direction for the building, with Skanska occupying a LEED platinum fitout on the 32nd floor (architect’s images and description here; Skansa case study)

Next stop Ottawa…

6 May 2010 Amsterdam

Today I visited the Arup office in Amsterdam and the Westraven Building in Utrecht. At the Arup office I met many of my colleagues and gave them a presentation of my trip so far. We had good discussion about the work the Melbourne and Amsterdam offices are doing and opportunities to share information relating to Revit, energy and daylight optimisation, and the affect of the internal environment of hospital rooms on patients. We talked about ways of providing feedback to building users and they told me about the concept of emotional feedback – little robots that use facial expressions to convey emotions (Link 1 and Link 2). Not sure if any of the research projects have looked specifically at using them in relation to building use, but I think if I had a freaky robotic cat staring at me all day I would change my behaviour!
After the presentation, a number of us drove south to Utrecht to the Westraven Building.

Here we met Robert Philipi, one of the design engineers on the project.
This is the home of the Rijkswaterstaat, which is roughly the equivalent of a government Department of Infrastructure in Australia. In the Netherlands they are responsible for highways and canals, amongst other things, and the building is ideally situated where a major highway crosses a major canal.

(Photo courtesy of Cepezed Architects and Robert Philipi)

The current building is a refurbishment of a 1970s office tower and expansion at the lower levels. The lower levels use a modular “finger” design that references elements seen in Dutch canals, and again fitting with the department the building houses.

(Photo courtesy of Cepezed Architects and Robert Philipi)
These fingers are covered with light-weight structure to create large light-filled atria and a winter garden.

These atria also create buffers between the external and internal climates

(Photo courtesy of Cepezed Architects and Robert Philipi)

Heating and cooling are provided via activated slabs and air is supplied via an underfloor system. Users have a certain amount of control over their space, with +/- 2 deg C on the supply air temperature, the lighting (including colour temperature) and control blinds and shading via an integrated remote control in each space.They can also open local ventilation (see pop-out panels on previous photo).

The facade uses two different strategies to moderate the external conditions. On the north, the main issues are strong winds and noise from the near-by highway. On the West, South and East, the issues are strong winds and solar gain. The wind and solar gain are mitigated using teflon-coated veils (shown here with its spring-mounted bracket). The teflon coating makes the veil self-cleaning when it rains.

Two things which most struck me about the building were how light it was and how good the acoustics were. The interior finishes use lots of white, polished aluminium and timber, which combined with large windows, provide a very well-light space. My first impression was that I was walking into the building version of an iPod (think old-school, rather than the newer ones).
The acoustics were great in that there weren’t the echoes or reverberations that I have heard in some buildings in Australia that also have large atria and lots of hard surfaces. At Westraven, acoustic panels are discretely located in office spaces (integrated with the lighting and fire protection)  and as vertical elements at low level in the atria. Overall, this was a very impressive building.

5 May 2010 Wembley stadium

Today I toured Wembley stadium before heading off to the Netherlands.

At Wembley I met Mohan Raje and Chris Rogers who both work for Honeywell and are in facility management at the stadium. They very kindly showed me the stadium control room, gave me an overview of the BMS, and a tour of the stadium.

The control room was one of the best facility management areas I have seen so far. Often the FM and the BMS computer gets the smallest office in the darkest, most remote corner of the building. At Wembley, it is more like an air traffic control centre.

From this room, operators can monitor all the systems in the stadium, including HVAC, security cameras, access control, fire detection and protection, HV and LV power and load shedding, and pedestrian numbers and movement (escalators and lifts). All computer terminals can access all information, but only the master terminal for each system can alter settings.

The stadium is all about the numbers, it has: 90,000 seats, 17,600km of cabling, 30,000 hard and soft points in the BMS, 6500 fire/smoke detectors, 200 security cameras, 6500 PA speakers, 168 water meters, 129 electricity meters, 11 gas meters, … the list goes on.
The stadium itself is equally impressive. Being only an intermittent soccer fan, I probably didn’t get as excited about the history and aura of the stadium as others might. Being a nerdy engineer though, I was still impressed. The stadium has the largest water storage tanks I have ever seen in a building – the following shows me in front of one of the tanks.

These tanks are two of four located in the stadium. The stadium also has some of the neatest cable reticulation I have ever seen. I know, I’m a nerd.

When I was there, the pitch had recently been re-laid. Apparently this has happened many times since the stadium opened. I did see an example of integration between landscaping and services; apparently the English sun is not strong enough to make the grass grow, so they wheel out a machine to provide artificial growing light.

Next stop the Netherlands…

04 May 2010 Cork

Last night I flew from Cornwall to Cork, after managing two things which I thought were impossible: getting sunburnt and seeing a (dead) snake in the UK. Today I was in the lovely town of Cork, Ireland. In the morning I was hosted by Donal Browne and Paul Stack of University College Cork (UCC). Donal is ex-Arup and is now a researcher at USS. Paul is working on an EU funded research project called Information and Communication Technology for Sustainable and Optimised Building Operation (known as ITOBO). They showed me around the UCC Environmental Research Institute (ERI) building, which is mixed mode building with solar hot water and underfloor heating.
The ERI building is a living laboratory, and one lesson learnt is that underfloor heating can be inflexible in terms of zoning. A number of the internal partition walls have been moved since the underfloor system was installed, meaning that now the room layouts no longer match the heating zones.

The ITOBO research project was interesting to learn about. They have been installing a number of wireless temperature (dry-bulb and radiant), humidity, light and occupancy sensors around the building to better understand how it is being used and how it is performing. Some lessons learnt from the research so far have been that the battery life of wireless sensors needs to carefully considered, along with the data sampling rate. One of the more complex sensors was using up the battery in 2 weeks. They are also investigating ways to present data for analysis by the building manager.

In the afternoon, I met up with John Burgess, Associate Director in the building services group at the Arup Cork Office. He showed me around two UCC buildings he designed the mechanical services for – the Boole Library and the Glucksman Gallery.

The Boole Library is named after George Boole, inventor of Boolean algebra which is the basis of computers, and who was a professor at UCC during the 1800s.
The building uses mixed-mode ventilation in 3 modes: natural ventilation, fan-driven free cooling, and air-conditioning. These modes are controlled by a sophisticated control logic to ensure that temperature, humidity and ventilation rate (based on CO2 levels) are appropriate.

The system also checks that the windows are not open when it is raining. This control logic was detailed as part of the tender documentation. Cooling is provided by vapour-compression and absorption chillers – the absorptions is fed by a central steam main that is generated by the campus CHP plant.
The Glucksman gallery has won a host of architectural and engineering awards and looks amazing (my photo doesn’t do it justice).

Unfortunately it was damaged recently in massive floods that affected much of Cork. The basement plant room was completely submerged and the flood water went about 1 m above the ground floor level. So when I was there, John was checking on the repair works to the basement plant. Much of the plant had to be replaced and all the pipework cleaned and repainted. When it is operating, the building uses a heat pump between cold and hot water buffer tanks. If the cold tank gets too cold when the system is trying to satisfy heating demand, or the hot tank too hot when the system is trying to satisfy the cooling demand, then water from the near-by river Lee is used via a heat exchanger to moderate the temperature in the buffer vessels.

Both of these buildings were fantastic examples of what can be achieved with good design.

01 May 2010 Eden Project, Cornwall UK

Thanks to the Icelandic volcano gods, my departure was delayed until 29th April. This meant that I had to modify my plans slightly. I was no longer able to do the KNX training course at the BRE or go to the University of Reading. Fortunately, it’s not all bad news. I was able to reschedule my visit to Wembley stadium and extend my time in the USA. I will now be attending the Connectivity Week conference in Silicon Valley, visiting the Arup office in LA, and hopefully squeezing in a visit to the Rocky Mountain Institute.
Today I am in Cornwall and have just visited the Eden Project; the world’s largest greenhouse so I’m told. It looks stunning, it has engaging educational displays, wildlife, and fun interactive displays.

The building is an interesting example of integration of services and facade – the ETFE bubbles of the biomes are kept inflated by air flowing through tubes.

There was one of the best examples of disguising building services. (above)

The tropical biome is a good study in adaptive thermal comfort. (below)

The site is overtly educational. It will be interesting to contrast how the Eden project delivers its messages to building users with the other buildings I will be visiting.

16 April 2010 The tour begins…

On Saturday, after about 7 months of organising, I will be heading off on a 5 week fellowship study tour, sponsored by the International Specialised Skills Institute and Construction and Property Services Industry Skills Council . My task is to understand what skills and training would help the Australian construction and property services industry to more effectively deliver and operate buildings with integrated controls. By this I mean active systems within a building that rely on input from multiple disciplines, such as mixed-mode ventilation, co- and tri- generation, active façade systems, buildings that actively manage electrical demand etc.

My motivation for this study is that buildings are becoming more sophisticated due to increasing demand for high performing buildings and rapid developments in technology, however they are not always performing to their potential. I feel that there is scope to help the industry through targeted training, and in talking to people I have realised that this view is shared by many people throughout the supply chain.

Over the next 5 weeks I will be doing the following:
In the UK
o KNX controls training course at the Building Research Establishment
o Site tour of Wembley Stadium with Honeywell
o Engineering Intelligence into Buildings course at the University of Reading (www.reading.ac.uk/CME/pg-taught/cme-pgt-mscintelligentbuildings.aspx)
o Site visit to the Eden Project (www.edenproject.com/)
o Arup London Office (www.arup.com/Global_locations/United_Kingdom/London.aspx)
In Ireland
o Visit to University College Cork to find out more about their current research projects on integrate controls (http://zuse.ucc.ie/itobo/)
o Tour the Glucksman Gallery (www.arup.ie/index.jsp?p=358&n=363) and visit the Arup Cork office
In the Netherlands
o Visit Arup Amsterdam office (www.arup.com/Global_locations/Netherlands.aspx)
o Tour the Westraven building (www.dexigner.com/design_news/cepezed-designed-westraven-office-complex-acclaimed-again.html)
In New York City
o Visit the Arup New York office (www.arup.com/Global_locations/USA/New_York.aspx)
o Tour the Empire State Building (www.esbnyc.com and www.esbsustainability.com)
o Tours of green high-rise buildings – 1 Bryant Park (Bank of America Building www.durst.org/i_prop.asp?propertyid=12) and 4 Times Square (Conde Nast Building www.durst.org/i_prop.asp?propertyid=9)
In Canada
o Visit the Continental Automated Buildings Association (www.caba.org/)
o Technologies for Facilities Management course with the Building Owners and Managers Institute Canada (www.bomicanada.com/html/Courses/Technologies.html)
In Syracuse (New York State)
o Tour the Syracuse Center of Excellence (http://syracusecoe.org/hqbldg/index.aspx)
In San Francisco
o Visit Arup San Francisco office (www.arup.com/Global_locations/USA/San_Francisco.aspx)
o Tour San Francisco Federal Building (http://morphopedia.com/projects/san-francisco-federal-building)
o Tour California Academy of Sciences (www.calacademy.org/academy/building/)

Check back again soon for words, photos and movies of my trip.

As promised in the Visual Reports post, here is the full towards zero carbon development film.

I explained in the earlier post the project started with the question of better presenting sankey diagrams. The full film is about explaining what the implications for the built environment are as we progress towards lower carbon targets and how we can progress towards achieving them.

This film was made to show Arup are not only working towards making zero carbon a realistic option we are also making it easier to understand.

All the content in the film is derived from our project work – several projects in fact – tied together to tell the story, and the narrative was developed by people who worked on the projects.

The energy chart offered the breakthrough for the narrative. Enjoy.

The Drivers of Change have been issued twice now. They are collated and published by the Foresight and Innovation team and consist of a series of cards grouped by theme around the STEEP principles covering Social, Technological, Economic, Environmental, or Political drivers.

The cards are often used as a tool for discussion or prompts for workshop events such as the 2009 TED Global workshop in Oxford.

More recently Duncan Wilson has created an interactive tag cloud so the drivers of change most pertinent to any particular group or workshop can be recorded at that event. We’re working with Duncan at the moment to develop a similar tool for the SlimCity workshops we will be conducting in Australia over the next few months. You can see the tag clouds for Melbourne and play with the voting while they are being developed.

SlimCity is a World Economic Forum initiative for which we co-developed three sets of cards (cousins to the Drivers of Change). They can be downloaded here.

Though many talk of the need for our cities to adapt and change to respond to current and future demands achieving significant change remains somehow elusive. The Building Melbourne initiative is being established to focus on the implementation of platform projects that demonstrate and lead the transition of Melbourne towards a sustainable future. Arup’s role in the initiative, in addition to driving formation, will be to promote the utilisation of digital innovations as key enablers to deliver on the initiative’s objective as it charts a course into new territory. Application of innovation will be critical in four areas:

• Communication to the cities’ residents and businesses about new futures for our built environment. This digital component of Building Melbourne will be essential to the process of building people’s confidence and support for new forms of built environment. Recently, Arup developed Digital Manchester, a 3D rendition computer model of the entire inner Manchester area and provides the City with a tool that can be developed for an enormous range of uses including flood defense mapping and also how cities can be retrofitted to mitigate against climate change. The model is viewed using computer gaming technology and enables users to virtually fly, walk and circle the streets and buildings of inner Manchester. This tool has been modified and adapted for use in consultation to enable the attendees to ‘walk around’ the proposed master-plan.
• Data collation, analysis and synthesis to enable effective integration of development solutions and implementation of preferred solutions that achieve lower environmental resource use and impact, while maintaining equivalent or higher quality of life outcomes. The Urban Energy Systems project at Imperial College London is an example in this area (refer figure 1 below), which aims to identify the benefits of a model-based, integrated approach to the design and operation of urban energy systems. The primary methodology involves the development of a holistic model of the city, involving the city layout, the behaviour of its citizens, the flow and conversion of resources (materials and energy) and the associated infrastructure. A key component is a model of the population and how, as individuals, they interact with the infrastructure. This enables the matching of energy demand and supply in innovative ways.

• Providing visualisation and modelling support to enable shared appreciation about the best solutions to city transition to develop amongst the initiative’s diverse participant membership group.
• Mapping stakeholder networks to domains of influence, transition arenas and implementation sequencing to support strategic engagement of stakeholders in the process of transition.

To understand more about the Building Melbourne initiative contact me at Arup.

Vegas2015: The Brisbane Retrofit Project is a series of explorations by Arup to understand the depth and breadth of the challenge resulting from a convergence of these issues in Brisbane.  Developing a range of pilot projects that adopt a suite of climate smart strategies for a city-wide retrofit of Brisbane is our vision.

Our cities are places of opportunity.  We rely on them to shelter and entertain us, provide us with employment and mobility.  The city is also a place under much stress as most of the world’s population seek out their ideal future in these urban centres.

But our built environment presents a challenge to our future growth, enhancement and prosperity as we start to realise the significant dependence on fossil fuel fixes we have introduced to solve many of our problems.  Our vehicles and buildings generate carbon pollution, along with our water and waste treatment and management systems.  Ninety-five percent of our food is currently oil dependent.

The city-wide retrofit idea comes from Arup’s Drivers of Change global research initiative, which has been continually exploring the issues most likely to have a major impact on society and the built environment.

Late last year, a colleague in Melbourne asked if I knew of a way to animate a Sankey diagram. A Sankey what? thought I, not within reach of Wikipedia (here’s the link). We then had a discussion on the flows of energy from generation to consumption and how such a diagram would transform its shape according to the situation.

In a report, and as a static diagram, the Sankey works quite well. But if its part of a story of varying input and modifying consumption then the diagram has a narrative along which it can contort itself. As we flicked through various technical reports I was thinking this diagram needed to jump off the page, tell the story and connect the various measures by which it is being varied to show the full picture.

So, if we’re working on an urban masterplan and reducing the consumption of electricity, what do those measures look like and how do they impact upon the total system. It didn’t really take all that long to piece together the various elements to make a story board for an animation. Three reports in fact; then some internal investment and the deft graphical hand of Fooch from Squint/Opera (Aus).

In the film, (excerpt below – we’re polishing the narrative) the content and the story are from our reports. We know though that not everyone reads technical reports, so this is the beginning of what’s next – visual reports.