Allianz Kai Frankfurt

– A Case Study of Digital Building

by omake, 2005

Index

Introduction

1          Building Project: Outline

2          Digital technologies

2.1             The Challenge

2.2             Rationale: Integration & control & Standardize

2.3             Methods & Implementations

3          Architectural Impact & Future development

3.1             Design

3.2             Management

3.3             Performance

3.4             Use

Conclusion

Reference

Introduction

Intercom and building communication and management facilities have always been a constituent part of the digital building technology in Germany in the past decades. With the rapid development of semiconductor technology, many products of high performance and reliability are emerging from this field, whose applications are much beyond the conventional building communication facilities. The application of components controllable through software and the use of effective bus technology have laid the foundation for this development. This paper will use a case study on the Allianz Kai building to indicate the role of those digital technologies and their architectural impact. Utilization of these digital technologies and its integration into the modern telecommunication and data network will also be covered.

1        Building Project: Outline

Allianz Kai building was a office building finished in July 2002, the new administrative headquarters of Frankfurter Versicherungs AG, located at the Friedensbrücke across the Main, accommodates more than 2,500 staff on altogether 105,000 square meters of floor space.

Faced with a highly exposed site at the chief southern access road to the city, the designer, Architect Joachim H. Faust, aimed at creating a building that defines the transition from the suburban accumulation of residential buildings to the singular and self-contained high-rises of Frankfurt. A stone façade faces the street and harmonizes both the scale and the material of the new structure with the buildings on the opposite side.

2        Digital technologies

2.1             The challenge

The first problem to face is the integration of information based on technologies with different language. The challenge is to integrate all those existing and new “information islands” of current and new applications into a functioning utility automation system. Control center need to know the overall operating conditions but the corporate culture is often resistant to telephone and fax communication, thus, information flow between facilities is limited. Utilities use the standards as a bridge between power plants, substations, and the control center, and to communicate within substations. They now have a broader perspective with more information on overall operating conditions such as change of loads, power production schedules, and other plant information.

In Allianz Kai project, 15 different building systems and functions were to be integrated including. It required 17 large DDC panels controlling more than 41,500 data points. (See following figure)

Another issue might be the time limitation. Entire building system need to be done within three months, including installation, programming, and commissioning.

How to coordinate all sub-systems and manage them? In this case, digital technology was wildly used to meet all the challenges for this building project. Other than time-consuming custom development, proven and readily available standard solutions were sought respecting the tight schedule.

2.2             Rationale: Integration & control & Standardize

For the building to function as an integrated system, the final technological ingredient required is a network. This network needs, ideally, to be real-time, and to have simple device interfaces comparable with the cheap nature of existing building devices such as light switches.

——Sue Sharples, Vic Callaghan, Graham Clarke (1999)

The idea to integrate all the system required in this project is to use TCP/IP and the Internet based technology. By using TCP/IP protocol as the communication conventions it is possible to connect or internet work different hardware technologies. Comer (1988) stated in his book: “The internet technology hides the details of network hardware, and permits computers to communicate independent of their physical network connections”.

Comparing with proprietary communication systems base on one specific vendor (See following figure), the internet technology made the “open system inter-connection” available. It has been designed to facilitate communication among machines with diverse hardware architectures with different network hardware, applications, and operating systems.

While integrate different systems mentioned in the context, such as HVAC systems and temperature sensors, as well as devices and appliances located within the complex, monitoring and control of those architectural devices came to be the point to achieve convenience, security providing, and energy saving. “To facilitate the control”, Scott Howe (1996) mentioned, “There must be a way to communicate the intentions and to actuate them on the device. Both of these require special hardware at both ends which can range in sophistication depending on the work to be done. The controlling of various devices is known as Direct Digital Control (DDC) technology”.

Meanwhile, digital standard of technologies provides a platform to achieve efficiency. Following ASHRAE[①] Standard Project Committee’s “charter”, the BACnet protocol was first published in 1995 as a set of standardized methods to achieve interoperability between and among HVAC direct digital control systems and other computerized building automation equipment. Modeled on the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) basic reference model, BACnet has facilitated interoperability and provided the ability to select the different vendors for particular task, and it was wildly used in Allianz Kai building.

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3        Architectural Impact & Future development

Through this case, it could be indicate that the introduction to building control systems of networks and intelligent agent might be one of the most important things that strongly changed the way we design a building. It affects today’s architecture in many aspects.

3.1             Design

A house is a machine for living in.

——Le Corbusier, (1921)

Composing with numerous sensors, effectors and control units, intelligent buildings, were designed in such a way as to effectively form a ‘machine’. In theory, a wide range of sensors and controllers could be utilized within a standard. In resent years, several Standard Building Systems were produced. It strongly affected the way of architectural design. By all means, the ‘industrialization’ of building system design was achieved.

A great deal of groundwork has been done to coordinate the building industry infrastructure. Whether BACnet and other building automation technologies succeed at changing standard residential construction, it is clear that at least some of the innovations are already entering the marketplace, albeit in fragmentary forms. Those achievements brought the design process with efficiency. In the case of Allianz Kai building, entire building system was finished within three months. It was clear to designers, that given the 12-week timeframe, a traditional contracting process was out of the question. As a result, the project was divided into several more manageable teams of smaller subprojects. These took advantage of existing control cabinets and cabling and included the EIB interface, fire alarm system, burglar alarm system, 17 DDC panels, 69 fire damper controllers, workstations for HVAC, EIB and specialized subsystems, and the security management system.

After successfully completion of each subproject achieved, design groups put their projects back together. Supporting by the industrial standard, the resulting coherent system would be expected to seamlessly provide all required interoperable functions.

Intranet-Web solution was used in this task after building all of the workstation graphics in a Web-capable format and the database in a JDBC-accessible (Java Database Connectivity) format. It provided a suitable solution for the KM over teams.

Teams were assembled to deal with each subproject consisting of switchgear technicians, electricians, and control and HVAC technicians. The division of the overall project into smaller subtasks and the subsequent reassembly of the project “puzzle” demanded an innovative system configuration. Here was the biggest risk of the whole project: it would not be possible to prove the interoperability and required response time performance of the reassembled “puzzle” until about six days before the acceptance date, at which time further testing and corrections would no longer be possible.

BACnet and other building automation technologies require widespread changes to the way buildings are made, changes that call for cooperation among the manufacturers of construction components, utility suppliers, and regulatory agencies that oversee the building industry. With the rapid changes in electronic and materials technology, it may well be that new standard building technologies will become obsolete by the time it can gain a footing. Providers for cable television, telephone, and new communications services are struggling to define technological standards, and the ownership of copper wire and fiber optic cable networks to each dwelling has been a valuable resource held by local telephone and electric companies. These organizational changes in the urban infrastructure may well have an impact on the way housing is wired and cabled for power and communications. The new information infrastructure being developed offers the possibility of broader participation in civic and community activities, access to educational resources, as well as work, shopping and entertainment. Higher bandwidth communication technologies are being developed to provide electronic community town meetings, distance learning, home shopping, and video on demand. However, it remains to be seen whether the technology will enhance and enrich the lives of citizens.

Finally, even after technical and organizational challenges are met, many will find a fine line between an intelligent building that maintains comfort levels and an overbearing house that monitors the inhabitants too closely.

3.2             Management

When a complex building was built, managing various layers of change came to be the key to ensuring that change takes place in an orderly manner. Different levels of change become the responsibility of different people. To emphasize that importance, Brand (1994) highlighted in his book: “The layering also defines how a building relates to people. Organizational levels of responsibility match the pace levels. The building interacts within individuals at level of Stuff; with the tenant organization or family at the Space Plan level; with the Landlord via the Services (and slower levels) which must be maintained; with the public via the Skin and entry; and with the whole community through city or county decisions about the footprint and volume of the Structure and restrictions on the Site”.

In this case, entire complex building supervision and security management system was laid out as a multivendor system. All of the required functions for building automation, such as the graphical display of all the various systems and the extensive security management system, could be accessed in a completely integrated manner. Each software package was able to make full use of its “best-of-breed” functionality without limitations. Workstation navigation through the system is based on building floor plans and the specific building system with the hierarchy: system type – building area – floor – system data point. The navigation does not require knowing to which I/O or data server a particular system has been assigned.

Comparing with the BACnet based FM system in Allianz Kai building different BAS standard might be used with in a single building. Following is the FM system of Shiodome building, Japan, with a combined approach of BAS standard. It clearly implicates the effort approaching flexibility within different standards.

3.3             Performance

The choice of network architecture can have a significant impact on project costs and system performance. In this case, four of BACnet network options were used as follows:

• Ethernet
• ARCNET
• MS/TP
• PTP

Obviously, this choice did not cover all of the network options, even on BACnet’s menu. However, it indicated that the choice should only depend on the required performance of project. As the president of Innovation AG, Karl Leber (2002) announced, “The most expensive, high-performance network does not always result in better overall system performance. Likewise, the more cost-effective network solutions do not necessarily result in lower performance if they are appropriately applied”.

Dealing entire building system as a group of Layers, or Units, depending on different standard, the idea behind is to enhance the performance of each unit to form a building which is “akin to human intelligence”.

However, In this case, entire buildings seems to be developed as a computer-based systems, akin to robots, gathering information from a variety of sensors, and using web-based techniques to determine appropriate control actions. Digital BMS was set to govern the building environment so as to optimize energy-consumption, user comfort, safety, and monitoring-functions.

3.4             Use

In a typical single vendor system, “Hand-Off-Auto” switches and indicators, such as the HVAC DDC controllers, needed to be equipped with a local display for manual operation and program editing. But in a multi-vender system, vendors sell the sensors and controller units to connect the security system, lights, telephone, and other devices to a personal computer. In this case, the installed Web technology in Allianz Kai building offered a cost-effective and convenient solution. Simple flat panel displays were installed with built-in industrial PCs that only needed a Web browser to visit the entire DDC network and access each controller’s displays, operation and program editing functions. With support of this technology, access to graphics, DDC data points, and DDC programs. Alarms and trends are available.

In the same time, unified workstation screen was created for the operator to tell which software package is used at any one time. When system or database maintenance is performed, it is necessary to bypass the specific I/O or data server that is assigned to a particular automation system and access the hardware components directly. It is possible to quickly go to any piece of equipment using a Windows Explorer-like data tree display. User authorization is implemented with the input of a user name and password. As it was mentioned in context, the integration of digital technologies in Allianz Kai building is based on an IPv4 network. It seems that, for each vendor to promote its uniqueness and retain its customers, it may choose to implement proprietary mechanisms, but that does not help a lot in promoting net-enabled building appliances.

IPv6, well known by its huge Address Space (from 4.3×10⁹ in IPv4 to 3.4×10³⁸ in IPv6) and Network Security (standard module IP sector adaptation & Secured end-to-end communication), brought a opportunity of regeneration for Building Management Systems. Other benefits from IPv6 such as Plug & Play, QoS and Real Time Communication, Multicast (1 to N Communication), Mobile IPv6 could also improved entire system with flexibility and efficiency. In an IPv6-based BMS, every facility in the building could have a unique IP address which is accessible all over the world. Remote Maintenance, Remote Control, Remote Monitoring, and Data Communication could finally achieve through on the ground of IPv6 standard. Those achievements will level the ground for a “third generation” intelligent building.

Conclusion

In resent 20 years, Intelligent Buildings based on computer technology coordinated and developed together with significant developments such as the introduction to building control systems of embedded processors, dedicated networks and intelligent agent approaches. The development and application of net-based digital technologies came to be the basic factor behind those efforts, which greatly increased the ease of operation of facility management. Meanwhile, supported by proven and readily available standard solutions, design process of building system could be packed into smaller sub-projects, so that a collaborative work between teams could be well operated.
Reference

Barnes, M., H. Edwards, D. Rose, P. Garner (1998) Lifestyle Monitoring- Technology for Supported Independence, IEE Computing & Control Engineering Journal, August, 12:14

Brand, S. (1994) How Buildings Learn, New York, Viking

Bushby, T. (1996) Testing conformance and interoperability of BACnet building automation products, CIBSE/ASHRAE Joint National Conference

Comer, D. (1988) Internetworking with TCP/IP: Principles, Protocols and Architecture, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey

Fountoukidis, P. (2004) Adaptive Management Of Emerging Battlefield Network, MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA, March

Fujiwara, N. (2005) IPv6 and Facility Management, Matsushita Electric Works, Ltd. 02/24

Howe, A. (1997) Internet-Based Remote Facility Management, Kajima Corporation

Krikke, J. (2005) T-Engine: Japan‘s Ubiquitous Computing Architecture Is Ready for Prime Time, IEEE Pervasive Computing, 4: 2, 4-9

Leber, K. (2002) BACnet’s Success In Germany, ASHRAE, October

Newman, N. (1996) Integrating Building Automation and Control Products Using the BACnet Protocol, ASHRAE Journal, Nov: 36-42

Sakamura, K., R. Sprague, (1989) The TRON Project, Byte, 14: 4, p292-301

Sharples, S., V. Callaghan, G. Clarke (1999) A Multi-Agent Architecture For Intelligent Building Sensing and Control, International Sensor Review Journal, May

 Return to Nature

 by omake, 2004

Digital technologies can add a new dimension to architecture, but they cannot redefine its fundamental character. For architecture, utopia will continue to lie in the real world, not the virtual realm.

Otto Riewoldt

Several basic questions should be raised to avoid any slapdash comment talking about redefinitions or changes of architectural landscape: What is Architecture? What is the fundamental of Architecture? And what was added into Architecture in information age?

Architecture and its fundamental character

Le Corbusier (1923) has famously argued that: “Architecture is the masterly, correct and magnificent play of masses brought together in light. Our eyes are made to see forms in light; light and shade reveal these forms; cubes, cones, spheres, cylinders or pyramids are the great primary forms which light reveals to advantage; the image of these is distinct and tangible within us and without ambiguity. It is for that reason that these are beautiful forms, the most beautiful forms”. Although he mentioned architecture as a mater of “harmonies”, and a “pure creation of the spirit”, still, lying outside questions of construction and beyond them, architecture was also illustrated as a ‘machine’, a thing of art, a phenomenon of the emotions.

As a different views, after examined the history of architecture in light of its essence as space, animating and illuminating architectural creations so that their beauty or indifferences exposed, Bruno Zevi (1948) stated in his book Architecture as Space: How to Look at Architecture[1], that ‘‘architecture is environment, the stage on which our lives unfold’’.

 “To grasp space, to know how to see it, is the key to the understanding of building.” He emphasized, “Architecture is not art alone; it is not merely a reflection of conceptions of life or a portrait of systems of living. Architecture is environment, the stage on which our lives unfold.”

Quite different with Le Corbusier’s concept of ‘building machine’, Zevi successfully clutched at the concept of ‘space’. Thus, it could abstain falling into the never-ended argument between shape and function. Thus, Zevi’s concept came to be wildly accepted by follows.

Cyberspace^® – Made in Information Age

Significantly, since history steps into the information age, what was brought into architecture by digital technologies is a completely new dimension out of geometric Euclidean space. Beyond the word ‘network’, Cyberspace came to be the most popular concept which is believed as the best one to represent those digital evolutions.

Cyberspace is a combined word which was first introduced by Sci-fi writer William Gibson (1984). It is the ‘space’ produced by information age, the non-physical space created by computer systems. ‘Position’ and ‘Distance’ are two of the keywords to make a further understanding of cyberspace; however, they also became the main battlefield of an epistemology-based argument.

Since the age of René Descartes and Isaac Newton, or even earlier, the flourish of theology, there use to be a red line lies between virtual and physical worlds. However, the development of technology break those balance down to a slough of philosophical argument, that if science have been tortured by epistemological dualisms.

Dualism

Generally, dualism is the view that reality consists of two disparate parts: mental and physical. Thus the mental is at least not identical with the physical.

The most important branch of dualism which is of immediate interest to philosophers of mind today is the Descartes mind, or so-called matter distinction. It was first given out in Descartes’ work Meditations (1641) and act as a particular kind of substance dualism which most accurately called Cartesian interactionist dualism. Cartesian dualism is used to refer to the general class of substance dualist theories. Substance dualists hold that mind and matter are different kinds of substances. It is a particular kind of substance dualism espoused by Descartes in which these two different kinds of substance can causally interact. Thus, mind substance can cause matter substance to act and matter substance can cause mind substance to have certain ‘sensations’ most often by itself being acted on by other material objects. For Descartes, the essence of matter is extension whereas that of mind is active thinking.

Because Descartes believed these two sorts of substance are essentially different, so that they are also independent. Thus, matter can exist without minds and minds can exist without matter. Such position raises an important question: How do mind and matter interact?

One thing to claim is that they do interact, while another to convincingly explain how, particularly when mind and matter are conceived of so differently. It is this question that must be answered to solve the classic mind-body problem. The Cartesian solution to the problem is to insist that the mental representation, though caused by the physical, does not resemble the physical. However, this does not seem to explain how the mental comes to represent the physical at all. It seems that Descartes’ position is to insist that God is the one who responsible for these interactions.

Argument of dualism; or, beyond dualism ?

As philosopher, William H. Poteat notes about this decontextualized knower, however, "to be deprived of place is to become disincarnated, to be driven mad, to become an alien — to have no home or not to be at home?"

Probably, the most accurate statement of those efforts was raised in Joseph Incandela’s work (1996), that "We ask where we belong; we try to place ourselves in our proper location."

There has been a recent revival of interest in the topic of Cartesian dualism amongst modern philosophers of mind and cognitive scientists. Arguments against dualism have been provided on the basis of both empirical evidence and on philosophical grounds. However, though of minority, some modern philosophers of mind have come to the defence of dualism.

As Churchland (1996) mentioned in his book, the argument of dualism is not only of historical interest, it also has important implications for the enterprise of science.

It means, that, if a convincing rejection of dualism can be formulated, the classic mind-body problem will be solved by its becoming a non-problem and the materialist approach of modern science will be vindicated. Or, conversely, dualism can be convincingly maintained, it is by no means obvious that empirical evidence will suffice for a thorough understanding of the mind. “In other words, understanding the brain may not be enough for understanding the mind.”

Since the flourish of postmodernism, some postmodernists began to think beyond Dualism. “That theology and science have been haunted by epistemological dualisms is an unremarkable claim.” As MacIntyre (1984) concluded. “Current postmodern efforts to think beyond such dualisms as objectivism versus relativism include recent attention to knowledge as socially constructed, communitarian, and nonfoundational.”