Drive Towards Real-Time Reasoning of Building Performance: Development of a Live, Cloud-Based System

Abstract

Post-occupancy evaluation data on both building performance and occupant comfort can be useful for facility operation and management, and for workspace design but are rarely used in practice due to challenges and research gaps in data collection and analysis. We argue that with the growth of mobile and pervasive computing capabilities, future space design and building management will be based on real-time feedback loops of building performance data—qualitative and quantitative—available through the cloud, at stakeholders’ fingertips. We have developed a live, cloud-based system to begin contextualizing fragmented big data sets as evidence to support improvement of workspace management and design, and this paper presents the development process. The proposed system has three functions: data collection, processing, and reporting. A wireless sensor network collects physical environmental data which are then posted to a cloud-hosted server. A smart device-administered survey collects occupants’ perception data. Thermal comfort principles, as well as HCI (human–computer interaction) development guidelines and design principles, were followed during development of the app, which was then rigorously tested. The time-stamped survey data are synchronized with environmental data captured by relevant sensors. Pilot data collection is ongoing, as is the correlation analysis of the two data sets used to validate the process. The real-time reasoning and report generation features, supplemented with additional data, will be beneficial to space design, and to facility operation and management. This holistic system is expected to provide a powerful and practical tool for both designers and facility managers.