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Retours d’expériences Big Data en entreprise
MICROSOFT - CARNEGIE
MICROSOFT - MEET CARNEGIE MELLON’S ENERGY SLEUTHS
An academic, architect, researcher and activist for energy conservation—Vivian Loftness is a champion of biophilic
design. Her workspace, surrounded by light and plants, reflects her passion.
Vivian Loftness is obsessed with sustainability and building performance. Having called many different cities
around the world home — from her birth city of Stockholm, to early years in Los Angeles and Paris, to study and
work stints in Boston, Helsinki, New York City, Cologne, Athens, Ottawa and finally, Pittsburgh, where she is a professor
at Carnegie Mellon’s School of Architecture — Loftness has checked out more than a few buildings close up.
Loftness’ singular passion is for sustainable architectural design and the need to get buildings in our world to a
“zero state” where they have the smallest possible energy footprint without sacrificing comfort. This is no small
feat, and a problem that is technological as much as it is architectural. But advances in technologies such as cloud
computing, data analytics and services such as Microsoft’s Azure Machine Learning are helping Loftness and two
researchers at Carnegie Mellon’s Center for Building Performance and Diagnostics slowly crack the code, one
building at a time, and in ways previously unthinkable.
THE ‘INTELLIGENT WORKPLACE’ - WHERE THE DATA JOURNEY BEGINS
The Intelligent Workplace, which sits atop the Margaret Morrison Carnegie Hall, was established in 1997 as the first
“Living Laboratory” of its kind dedicated to research in building sustainability.
The Robert L. Preger Intelligent Workplace, which sits atop the stunning Margaret Morrison Carnegie Hall, is where
Loftness and 30 researchers and graduate students are studying the impact of a variety of factors on the quality
of built environments. Natural light dominates this space they call “the Living Laboratory,” streaming in through
skylights and wall after wall of expansive windows that offer sweeping views of the campus grounds. Research
students occupy open, collaborative workspaces. Unfinished wooden building models sit on work tables which, like
the rest of the furniture and walls in the lab, are reconfigurable and movable — all in a matter of minutes. Plants
are everywhere, and if you look closely enough, several are wired with sensors, as are the walls and ceilings of
this “living” workspace.
For these researchers, the journey started with really simple questions: How do you give people who work in buildings
a comfortable environment while using the least possible energy? How do you make people accountable for
their own energy footprints? And how can technology assist in that journey?
Senior researchers Bertrand Lasternas and Azizan Aziz work with Loftness, sharing her passion for taking on one
of the most daunting problems facing our generation — How do you make buildings more energy efficient? The
statistics are sobering. Nearly 70 percent of all electricity in the United States goes toward building operations —
heating and cooling systems, lighting, ventilation and plug loads. For these researchers, the journey started with
really simple questions: How do you give people who work in buildings a comfortable environment while using
the least possible energy? How do you make people accountable for their own energy footprints? And how can
technology assist in that journey?
MAKING SENSE OF BUILDING DATA
Not unlike a crew of investigators methodically working their way through evidence at a crime scene, these energy
sleuths have cultivated a healthy respect for data and are capturing it from buildings all across the Carnegie Mellon
campus. They’re about halfway there, drawing data from 40 buildings, with roughly 25 more to go.
Data is how buildings reveal their secrets and to miss one key piece could potentially derail an entire investigation.
“The behaviors of buildings we analyze and the people who occupy them are unique, complex and hard to predict,”
says Loftness. There are students who leave windows open in their dorm rooms during bitterly cold winters when
heat is blasting. There are building managers who leave air conditioning systems running during cool summer
nights. There are offices that enjoy bright daylight but whose staff still leave the lights on all day. And then there
is the challenge of managing “things”— thermostats, computers, microwaves, elevators — as well as analyzing
external factors such as day-to-day fluctuations in weather.
SO MUCH INEFFICIENCY
Loftness conducts a lecture with graduate students at the Intelligent Workplace. Some of her students assist with
the data sleuthing activities.
The large number of variables means one simple thing: Buildings, like those who inhabit them, are living beings.
What are they telling us? More importantly, are we doing enough to listen?
“There is no question that we save 30 percent in most buildings through better awareness of where the energy’s
going, and giving users better controls to adjust for their individual needs while driving down energy usage,” Loftness
says.
The stakes are high and so is the urgency. About 40 percent of CO2 emissions globally come from buildings.
Buildings use technologies and products assembled in hundreds of unique ways, generating literally millions of
Document réalisé par la Société Corp Events - Janvier 2015
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