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This paper aims to share the vision of integrated building systems based on internet protocol (IP) based on the presentations and facilitated discussions at the BuilConn: Cisco's Connected Real Estate Roundtable in Spring 2006.

Based on the observation of the BuilConn Conference Roundtable and related literature, this paper lays out requirements to support IP‐ and computer‐based integration of building systems.

The authors detail the value proposition, challenges, and related engineering and business transformations of integrated building systems. While cost savings, new advanced services, and flexibility in building operations are the major benefits, the main challenges are the missing awareness and knowledge in the building industry, the educational gap among real estate professionals and owners, the implementation of appropriate security, the use of intelligent building technology, performance and cost saving issues, specific problems for building renovation projects, and the realization of reliable critical building operations. Furthermore, the balance between IP and non‐IP devices, benefits of the IP itself, and the need for more elaborate standards were discussed at the Roundtable. The Roundtable participants identified the following critical transformations within the building project environment to make integrated IP‐based building systems a reality: more flexible design, construction, and facility management contracts, earlier involvement of integration experts, and more flexibility in today's design process.

The participants felt that only when these transformations are accomplished and the mentioned challenges resolved will companies be able to take full advantage of the benefits and realize the vision of integrated IP‐based building systems.

This paper summarizes the presentations and facilitated discussions at the Roundtable, which have, so far, only been accessible to the roundtable participants, and provides a reflecting point of view of participants from the building industry, building owners, and academic representatives on strategic and operational issues around IP‐based building systems.

Traditional administration of building services regards them as having confined scope, operating in isolation or tightly coupled and providing minimal support for overall coordination and holistic management hindering the provisioning of advanced services. This approach inherently bears weaknesses related to complex services management, results in increased costs, and formulates rigid architectural design that restricts flexibility and extensibility. Taking into consideration this set of drawbacks, the purpose of this paper is to propose exploiting a service‐oriented architecture that will allow for dynamic, coordinated and distributed building services management.

The paper presents the design of an enterprise‐based networking architecture for building services and systems and specifies its functional components.

The proposed architecture is compliant with established practices in the building automation field and focuses on catering for a wide spectrum of building and enterprise level services. A specific deployment use‐case scenario and its related implementation issues is considered, so as to promote interoperability and adoption of open standards and principles for the system level performance evaluation of the proposed architecture is also examined.

Literature review is not exhaustive and evaluation of the proposed architecture should be performed in a more systematic manner.

Adoption of a service‐oriented view as far as facilities management is concerned.

This paper identifies through a thorough literature review the research problems in the area of building services integration and proposes an approach to enable successful integration. The novelty of this work is based on the application of the state‐of‐the‐art in enterprise networking for integration of building management and IT‐based services.

Discusses the recent trend of computer intelligence in building control systems, and identifies the viability of manufacturers′ controls to communicate with one another as a constant drawback. Suggests that a solution lies with new software called Facility Manager, which uses Apex communication drivers to allow different manufacturers′ controllers to talk to one another, yet maintain confidentiality. Describes the development of this software and its operation.

This paper aims to identify the different system approach that is equipped with decision making processes. Presently, most maintenance organisations are still implementing conventional methods rather than fully integrated information and communication technology (ICT) to manage the information database on maintenance of residential building. The significant factor to select an ICT is much more advantageous than just a way to improve interfirm communication and cooperation on maintenance management processes and be able to perform the task needed without stressing the budget. ICT could be a pillar of fundamental importance for the implementation of an effective and efficient maintenance management on residential building and facility.

This paper presents a review of recent publications on the topic regarding residential maintenance systems, which also takes into consideration the heritage structures, due to their same maintenance requirements and processes.

The findings reveal the need for ICT tools and techniques specific to the needs of reducing poor service delivery, inadequate financial support, poor maintenance plan and maintenance backlogs.

The paper concludes with a comprehensive research framework of ICT-based system as the basis for further progress in the development of the residential maintenance schemes of system.

“Intelligent building” is a commonly used though little understood expression in the facilities arena. Explains that building, space and business management are the three main goals of an organization occupying a building. A cost/benefits model must examine efficiency and effectiveness productivity and the additional costs/disbenefits associated with intelligence. Identifies further three developing integration activities in the building development cycle – project, systems and services integration, and concludes that the “virtual building”, which maximizes both efficiency and effectiveness gains, is the ideal.

The concept of intelligent buildings has evolved as the use of information technology — electronic data handling — has grown. There are several strands to this concept Separating them will enable facilities managers to assess the relevance of the whole, and to make informed decisions on their organisation's need for intelligent buildings — and intelligence in buildings.

Building management systems — or building automation systems as they are sometimes called — are intelligent systems for controlling and managing buildings by automating those functions normally carried out by people and managing energy use. In early Facilities articles we looked at the case for building management systems primarily on their energy savings potential (Vol 1/No 2, May 1983) and on their capacity for integration with other monitoring functions (Vol 1/No 3, June 1983).

This study aims at capturing the perspectives of construction professionals into a classified taxonomy of the various characteristics of smart buildings and at developing an index able to define their level of smartness.

A questionnaire survey has been administrated to construction professionals in the service of designers, constructors and owners. Results have been analyzed with the Kruskal–Wallis test and they have been used to develop a smartness index.

Designers and owners are more focused on the energy issue than constructors. The energy captures the attention of practitioners with less years of experience, confirming that the awareness of the energy topic is rather recent.

The main characteristics of smart buildings have been structured in domains and subdomains. Their importance has been rated by construction professional and a smartness index for smart building has been developed to provide with a convenient tool for evaluation and benchmarking.

The emergence of intelligent buildings is likely to impose significant demands on facilities managers into the twenty‐first century. Whether we choose the term intelligent or not, building intelligence permeates through every feature of the modern building. The capabilities of the facilities management team are tested not only in terms of their technological know‐how. Perhaps more importantly it is technological uncertainty and organizational change which are likely to demand more sophisticated approaches to building design, procurement, project management, team working and operations management. The work environment that the modern building facilitates is undergoing a transformation. There is evidence of a need for a new way of dealing with the uncertainties and ambiguities of the intelligent building. In turn, this demands a fundamentally new approach to educating the facilities manager of the future. Looks at two courses in intelligent buildings which serve quite different needs in the educational arena. Discusses the extent to which such courses will fulfil the needs of the marketplace in helping to deliver more productive working environments.