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What is a Cognitive Building?

26 January 2020

Since the beginning of the 21st century, the role of architects, building services design consultants and M & E engineers has become increasingly more complicated, as new and emerging technologies are used to make buildings more efficient and eco-friendly.

The Varming Consulting Engineers team is fully engaged with all established and emerging building technologies and in this blog, we look at cognitive buildings, which represent the next generation in sustainable building design.

So, what exactly is a cognitive building?

Well, cognitive buildings are those which feature building systems that automatically analyse and learn from the huge amount of Internet of Things (IoT) data that’s generated within its environment. The result of this is a building that actively helps to reduce costs and improve the experience of building users. The recent boom in a variety of IoT technologies has made this concept a reality.

M & E consulting engineers are able to use these technologies in a number of ways:

Battery-free Sensors – one of the key elements of a cognitive building is the humble sensor, which when deployed on a massive scale, enables monitoring at a granular level, allowing comfort and operational levels to be controlled for each and every individual workspace.

Prediction in real-time – There have been a number of improvements in AI and machine learning, meaning that the data received can allow a building to dynamically predict aspects like operational need, peak energy-use times and occupancy.

Ease of Control via Apps – Hand in hand with technological advancements have come new mobile phone apps and interfaces that allow cognitive buildings to be controlled remotely from anywhere. Speech interfaces and augmented reality are also used by electrical engineers to allow building owners to seamlessly control their systems.

Essentially, a cognitive building is one designed by mechanical and electrical engineering firms to ‘think’ for itself and in doing so reduce the costs and time it takes to run, as well as predicting maintenance and when systems are used the most. Going into 2020, we can only see more and more of this kind of set up being employed.

Interested in Learning More?

Modern paradigms in the construction industry like cognitive buildings are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to innovative solutions being found to make the construction industry leaner and more environmentally conscious. If you would like to learn more about anything discussed here or about sustainable design in general, we recommend you head over to our website www.varming.ie.

However, if you’d like to speak directly to one of the friendly experts at Varming Consulting Engineers Limited, you can do so by call us now on +353 (0)1 4872300.