When Buildings Learn from our Bodies

When Buildings Learn from ourBodies:

OUR HIGH PERFORMANCE FUTURE WILL BE “AUTONOMIC” AND “SOMATIC”

BY KEVIN HYDES

Many of humanity’s greatest technological advances and unexpected innovations have happened when engineers drew inspiration from related fields or from the natural world.

The late Owen Finlay Maclaren helped design the Spitfire’s landing gear - and later invented the folding pram by applying his knowledge of lightweight, collapsible structures. Eiji Nakatsu was head of technical development for the 500-series Shinkansen, or bullet train. Faced with the problem of “tunnel boom” that afflicted fast-moving trains entering narrow tunnels, he took inspiration from the Kingfisher, whose elongated beak allows the bird to transition from air to water with precision and efficiency.

The bullet train’s nose-cone design is an example of biomimicry, a concept brought into the mainstream by Janine Benyus in her 1997 book. Janine awoke our curiosity, encouraging designers to look to the genius of nature’s patterns to provide the inspiration for new technologies that could create a healthier and more sustainable planet. Biomimicry draws upon the catalogue gifted to us by the entire natural world, but my own fascination rests with the increasingly close alignment between the design of our own bodies and that of the latest high performance buildings - anthromimicry I suppose.

There are some easy comparisons to be made between buildings, their component parts and systems, and how you and I function day in, day out. The air handling plant is like our lungs, the facade is analogous to our skin, the building structure to our skeletons, and so on. But dig deeper and the similarities can be far more complex and fascinating. To better understand how this way of thinking has the potential to positively impact our experience of these buildings, we need to explore the difference between ‘autonomic’ and ‘somatic’ systems - terms you might dimly recall from high school biology.

Faced with the problem of “tunnel boom” that afflicted fast-moving trains entering narrow tunnels, designer Eiji Nakatsu took inspiration from the Kingfisher, whose elongated beak allows the bird to transition from air to water with precision and efficiency.

AUTONOMIC AND SOMATIC: AS IN BODIES, SO IN BUILDINGS

The human body is a truly remarkable system, managed through a combination of unconscious and conscious functions. The ‘autonomic’ nervous system, regulated by the brain’s hypothalamus, is responsible for involuntary body functions such as breathing, keeping your heart beating and our fight- or-flight response. On the other hand, the ‘somatic’ nervous system is responsible for the voluntary body functions such as when you choose to move your hand to scratch that itch on your nose. In simple terms, autonomic functions happen in the background without conscious effort while somatic functions are driven by our decisions.

Now, a little context will go a long way at this point. I founded Integral Group ten years ago, a building services engineering and sustainability firm with over 400 incredibly smart individuals. In simple terms, we look after the pipes, wires, lights and ducts that make buildings come alive. We spend a lot of time working with our clients and design collaborators trying to eliminate the need for these systems in the first place - going far beyond the basic engineering by exploring every opportunity to harness natural systems to do that work for us. Much or our work is purposely hidden from view - systems that we expect to just, do their job - much like the autonomic nervous system and the organs that it controls.

Many of today’s building technologies operate in the same manner as our autonomic body functions.

Take ‘demand controlled ventilation’ as an example; DCV systems regulate how much air we put into an occupied space based on feedback on the level of CO2 in the breathing zone, just as the autonomic respiratory system regulates the body’s levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide by adjusting how often and deeply you breathe. Or systems of air filtration and heat recovery in modern air handling units, a service provided without any effort on your part by the intricate design of your nose.

AUTONOMIC PROBLEMS AND SOMATIC RESPONSES

Regrettably, most existing building stock isn’t working cohesively in the background leading to performance issues. Ineffective and outmoded building controls are often coupled to outdated assumptions of what conditions make people happier and more comfortable. The thermostat that is probably ruling the roost when it comes to thermal comfort in the room you are in right now is most likely programmed based on studies of male-dominated offices of the 1960s. It’s not then surprising that conditioning a building to keep a ‘typical’ 40-year-old, 70 kilogram male, leaves a lot of room for complaints from today’s diverse workforce.

And what does this unyielding, traditional style of autonomic control lead to? A negative somatic response from building occupants - frustration, a building management complaint, met with a step-change system reconfiguration response from the facilities manager. A response to extremes leads to extreme responses. Conditions swing wildly from too hot to too cold. Sound familiar?

TAKING INSPIRATION FROM THE BODY

So how can autonomic systems provide the inspiration to design better buildings?

In the past few years the industry has made significant progress with the emergence of a whole raft of technologies that are bringing autonomic intelligence to our buildings, allowing them to continuously sense their environment, respond dynamically and automatically, without human intervention. We are moving towards an age where analogues of the selfregulating mechanisms that maintain our body’s health and comfort will become ubiquitous technologies in the built environment.

Consider the benefits of dynamic glazing, which last year was ranked in the top 100 solutions for mitigating global warming in Paul Hawken’s bestseller “Drawdown”. Dynamic glass is able to tune the quantity of incoming natural light, and with it to control the heat of the sun, by changing the tint of the glass. This is the same reflex employed by your eye - constricting and dilating the pupil in response to the intensity of light reaching the retina. Understanding how these two responses interact - formed an intriguing part of a recent white paper on Merck’s liquid crystal window published by our analysis team in London.

Another building technology that is gaining momentum is circadian lighting, which utilises advances in LED technology to automatically tune the colour of artificial light throughout the day in alignment with our body clock, or circadian rhythm. Our body relies on the autonomic secretion of melatonin, in part driven by our access to natural light, to regulate sleep patterns and blood pressure, among other processes. Our increasingly indoor lifestyles can wreak havoc with this process - in the same way that jetlag hits us all. Circadian lighting holds the prospect of positively supporting our body’s natural functions, promoting an increase in our health and wellbeing.

The Therma-Fuser by Accutherm is a building technology that provides an autonomic response that mimics the human body’s thermoregulatory systems, particularly arterial dilation whereby blood flow is increased in response to overheating. Each Therma-Fuser diffuser contains a built-in thermostat and actuator that controls the flow of air based on the thermal requirements of the zone served by each diffuser. This solution provides significant energy and comfort improvements over a more traditional variable air volume approach, and was used in our LEED Platinum rated Oakland office.

We are moving towards an age where analogs of the self-regulating mechanisms that maintain our body’s health and comfort will become ubiquitous technologies in the built environment.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is maturing within the building industry and will lay a foundation for smart building innovations to come. Technologies such as the Nest Learning Thermostat, which still feels novel but remarkably made its first splash way back in 2011, utilise these networks of sensors and actuators with an added layer of machine learning. Nest technology is able to algorithmically tune a building’s operation in response to the behaviour of its occupants. The mesh networking principles of IoT will continue to support the development of adaptive and resilient building systems. In yet another parallel to the human body, these selfconnecting networks operate in a similar way to synapses in our brains. They first formed in our baby brain as the most useful connections became hardwired, and remarkably can sometimes be rerouted and reconfigured following trauma.

SATISFACTION IS SOMATIC

Although our human responses are a combination of autonomic and somatic functions, we get the most pleasure from our somatic interactions. Imagine: on a hot summer day your eyes begin to squint from the sun, you perspire to keep cool and you instinctively seek shade. All autonomic responses that make things feel better. But to really feel good, I’d much prefer to choose to sit in the sunshine, shades on, at the beach, cool waves lapping over my feet, with a refreshing cold beer in hand. That’s somatic.

We are moving towards an age where analogs of the self-regulating mechanisms that maintain our body’s health and comfort will become ubiquitous technologies in the built environment.

Perhaps unsurprisingly there is good evidence to suggest that occupant satisfaction in buildings is higher when we have access to options to exert adaptive control, or somatic regulation, of our environment. The Comfy app platform is a great example of a building technology that works with this evidence base to harness existing autonomic infrastructure while providing a level of somatic input for occupants. Users of a Comfy-enabled building can register and update their preferences for temperature within a space, in real time, via the Comfy app. This data is then used by the autonomous HVAC system to tune the performance of the building in real-time, while collecting valuable data on occupant preferences and satisfaction.

That’s just the beginning. The next generation of building occupants will demand data and performance visibility at their fingertips and expect building systems to prevent or at least actively address any shortfalls. Consider the availability of low-cost air quality monitoring devices such as the Foobot and Awair that are raising our awareness of indoor environmental quality to levels unimaginable only 5 years ago. Devices like these can be setup to automatically communicate with the wider world. IFTTT - If This Then That - is a free platform that enables anyone to add autonomic intelligence to these technologies. No wiring, no expensive or complicated building management interface, no facilities manager or training needed - just a $99 smart plug that can merrily tweet its grievances with your building to the planet.

WHAT NEXT?

I foresee innovation in building systems and autonomic response keeping pace with our thirst for feedback on the quality of our environments. Autonomic innovations will provide the essential infrastructure taking care of fundamental building operations - providing fresh air, clean water, circadian light and shelter from the climate - and meeting our zero carbon goals - without our active intervention or conscious input. Inspired by the genius of our own bodies building technologies may eventually match the simplicity, reliability and hidden wonder of our own autonomic systems. Leaving us all free to devote our attention to what matters - scratching that itch with one hand, maybe with a cool beer in the other. •

Article first published in Intelligent Glass Solutions, Spring 2018.

KEVIN HYDES PE, PEng., CEng, RAIC(hon), FCIBSE, LEED Fellow, CEO & President, Integral Group

A pioneer of sustainable building systems’ design, Kevin’s commitment to advancing its cause began over 20 years ago. He has served as an Industry Expert, and Technical Advisor for several organizations, including: Clinton Climate Initiative, Climate Carbon Positive Community, EcoDistricts, Building Health Initiative, One Planet Communities, City of Vancouver Greenest City 2020 Action Plan, GSA National Peer Professional, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Flex Lab, and Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability.