feature
W
ith rapid urbanization
putting ever-increasing
demands on infrastructure,
buildings around the globe
are by necessity growing
taller and becoming more
functional in nature. Thanks
to those same demands,
and the rise of new technologies, buildings are also become
progressively smarter in ways that would have been hard to
predict even a decade ago.
KONE Americas Executive Vice President
Larry Wash
is a passionate advocate and trend-watcher in the area of
smart building development. He says many of the more
fundamental changes go far deeper than what an end user
would notice on the surface. “The way buildings are being
designed, the way they’re being constructed and the way
they’re being managed are all changing, with more smart
technology being introduced into each of those processes.”
INTELLIGENT DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION
The benefits of smart building innovation can already be
felt in a building’s design phase, well before the first shovel
hits the ground.
Universal advances in the area of smart design have come
in the form of BIM, or Building Information Modeling.
“For us, that’s a complete digital representation of the
physical and functional characteristics of an elevator,” Wash
explains.
In addition to providing a shareable 3D blueprint for a
“Once you get people
into elevators, the
information flow can
be tailored to who
the person is and
what their purpose is
in the building.”
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