“How can Buildings Evolve to Anticipate what Occupants Need & Desire?” A Presentation by Paul Fletcher, Innovative Design-Thinker & Principal at through… Discussing how the Building Industry needs to accept and embrace a new paradigm in understanding how people use the built environment.

1. Smart Buildings
need smart thinking…
@thrutl © 2016 studioFAB limited / Paul Fletcher
HOW CAN BUILDINGS EVOLVE TO ANTICIPATE
WHAT OCCUPANTS NEED & DESIRE?
Paul Fletcher
January 20 2016

2. what is a smart building?
A smart building is one that does not
make its users feel dumb...
...yet as the (construction) industry inexorably
digitise existing processes and methods of
building design, construction and operation
the end result is all too often just that!
@thrutl © 2016 studioFAB limited / Paul Fletcher

3. Smart Buildings: dumb users
…exaggerated by the insidious industry view
of those outside it’s ‘club’ as ‘lay people’?
@thrutl
‘Smart Building’ is very
rarely a smart building
© 2016 studioFAB limited / Paul Fletcher

4. How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They’re Built
the evolution of buildings and how buildings adapt to changing
requirements over long periods.
yet there is a (reluctant) admission that
what we design and construct doesn’t
actually work very well…
@thrutl © 2016 studioFAB limited / Paul Fletcher

5. @thrutl © 2016 studioFAB limited / Paul Fletcher
stage 0, 1
truer
stage 7
assumed
stage 7

6. @thrutl © 2016 studioFAB limited / Paul Fletcher

7. @thrutl © 2016 studioFAB limited / Paul Fletcher

8. a building in use is a system of complex
interaction;
architecture
building physics
and…
humans - us & our behaviours
@thrutl © 2016 studioFAB limited / Paul Fletcher

9. complex need not
mean complicated…
@thrutl © 2016 studioFAB limited / Paul Fletcher

10. a smart building should...

11. …be one that does not make
the user(s) feel dumb

12. It embraces complexity yet
removes complication.
And those designing and
constructing it understand
that Outcome always trumps
Product!
(and that ‘lay’ people is an unacceptable term)

13. (the house is a)
machine for living...
LeCorbusier

14. accommodation
(using technology to replicate an
analogue process)
adaptation
(extending the digital process into
new, incremental functionality)
evolution
(creating new, otherwise
unanticipatable practices)
toward a more human
architecture
Nicholas Negroponte

15. complex need not
mean complicated…
artificial intelligence, robotics, the Internet of Things,
autonomous vehicles, 3-D printing, nanotechnology,
biotechnology, materials science, energy storage, and
quantum computing.
@thrutl © 2016 studioFAB limited / Paul Fletcher

16. @thrutl © 2016 studioFAB limited / Paul Fletcher

17. with smart thinking…
we could change emphasis and focus to buildings (and
built environment) as service, not merely product, co-
creating environments in which people and society at
large can thrive…
forget Smart Buildings (for that is merely gadgets and
digitised adaptation) what is needed are buildings that are
truly ‘machines for living’ - harnessing the best of our
knowledge with empowering technology…
@thrutl © 2016 studioFAB limited / Paul Fletcher

18. “If I had an hour to
solve a problem and
my life depended on
the solution, I would
spend the first 55
minutes determining
the proper question
to ask for once I
know the proper
question, I could
solve the problem in
less than 5
minutes…”
Einstein

19. with smart thinking…
Einstein solved with mathematics and physics…
smart thinking (for me) is about
new questions, not just getting
ever better at answering the same
old questions…
We solve with design and construction…
@thrutl © 2016 studioFAB limited / Paul Fletcher

20. thought experiment…
considers hypothesis, theory, or principle for the
purpose of thinking through its consequences.
This is what I do.
Built Environment Ideation
This is how I find the questions…
@thrutl © 2016 studioFAB limited / Paul Fletcher

21. smart thinking…
…can herald an era of
intelligent buildings
buildings that augment the wellbeing of occupants
such buildings will be
autonomous
@thrutl © 2016 studioFAB limited / Paul Fletcher

22. thank you, questions?
@thrutl © 2016 studioFAB limited / Paul Fletcher