INGENIEUR
PURPOSE OF BUILDINGS
About one million years ago, man began venturing
into caves, primarily to seek shelter from the harsh
weather, safety from wild animals and space for
communal purposes. The discovery of fire that
kept man warm, provided protection from wild
animals and enabled cooking activities.
Fast forward to today, Wikipedia describes
buildings as serving several societal needs,
“primarily as shelter from the weather, security,
living space, privacy, to store belongings, and to
comfortably live and work.” In today’s context,
electricity takes the place of fire as an enabler.
From caves to buildings, in one million years,
man’s needs have remained pretty much the
same. This is encapsulated in Abraham Maslow’s
hierarchy of needs.
Today’s buildings serve to fulfil man’s
physiological needs by providing shelter, with
comfortable indoor weather and environment
controlled by the air-conditioning and lighting
systems.
Safety and security is provided by the fire
systems with CCTV and card access for auto
doors/gates.
The telephony, network and lift systems on
the other hand, enable communication and
connectivity within the social community for
collaborative activities.
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VOL
2019
VOL 77
55 JANUARY–MARCH
JUNE 2013
DEFINITIONS OF INTERNET OF
THINGS (IoT)
The Internet of Things, or IoT, is a system of
inter-related computing devices, mechanical
and digital machines, objects, animals
or people that are provided with unique
identifiers (UIDs) and the ability to transfer
data over a network without requiring human-
to-human or human-to-computer interaction
(Whatls.com).
The Internet of things is the network of
devices, vehicles, and home appliances that
contain electronics, software, actuators,
and connectivity which allows these things
to connect, interact and exchange data
(Wikipedia).
4 th INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
The automation and data exchange initiatives that
began in the manufacturing industry have turned
into a full-blown revolution cutting across other
good-producing sectors including agriculture,
mining, construction as well as service-producing
sectors such as transportation, communication,
utilities, finance, insurance, healthcare, and real
estate.
Automation is being increasingly employed,
with more robotics taking over routine and labour-
intensive tasks. Digitalisation is rife, with the use of
apps and mobile devices across all workstreams.
Cyber-physical systems enabled by the Internet
of things and cloud computing are making drastic
changes to the landscape. Industry 4.0 is the next
step in evolution for buildings.
Most buildings today, already have some
form of Building Management System (BMS) or
Building Automation System (BAS) which enables
monitoring and control of the building remotely,
without having to station people on site. Most of
the time, this is limited to the air-conditioning and
lighting systems. The advent of the Internet of
things takes this one-step further by connecting
these systems as well as other disparate systems
in the building to the Internet, literally putting the
entire building online.