The smart environment of commercial buildings

Abstract

Cities are becoming evidently mature with their decades' implementation of various emerging smart technologies. The era of Internet of Things [IoT] has introduced technical installation, automated management, and ubiquitous sensors, which contributed to the rise of smart cities in the early 21st century. Buildings, which were historically identified as shelters and urban machines, are now becoming ‘smart’ and turning into urban devices. Although research has progressed applications' development in various areas, including the environmental monitoring, water management, surveillance, lighting management smart services, and crowd-sensing, there is a clear gap in the application of the IoT concept in a more confined physical space, specifically in commercial building environments. That being said, there is a growing number of innovative social and people-centric application areas, including social networking, which would help in creating buildings that respond to their contents as well as the outer environment. These buildings would serve both the exterior and the interior users, and architecture would be classified as an active element in the world of today. This research focuses on constructing conceptually transparent commercial building environments through means of interactive architecture. The paper aims to visually portray the crowd levels on the commercial buildings' skin, and explore the required components that develop smart building systems and their applications. The main objective of this study is to suggest design guidelines that accommodate IoT systems to create architecture that is able to serve people in real-time, and in a responsive manner.