Advanced Building Simulation

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Self-organizing models for sentient buildings 163
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Figure 7.2 SEMPER’s shared object model (SOM).
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processes (heating, cooling, ventilation, and lighting) require a richer kind of underlying
representational framework. Such representation must combine detailed building
product information with building control process modeling.
7.3.4 Control as process
There appears to be a divide between modes and styles of control system representation
in the building control industry and representational habits in architecture and
building science. Specifically, there is a lack of systematic building representations
that would unify product model information, behavioral model information, and
control process model information. To better illustrate this problem and possible
remedies, first some working definitions regarding the building control domain are
suggested (see Table 7.1). These definitions are neither definitive nor exclusive, but
they can facilitate the following discussions.
A basic control process involves a controller, a control device, and a controlled
entity (see Figure 7.3). An example of such a process is when the occupant (the
controller) of a room opens a window (control device) to change the temperature
(control parameter) in a room (controlled entity). Note that such process may be
structured recursively, so that an entity that might be seen as device at a “higher”
level may be seen as a controlled entity at a “lower level”. For example, when a control
algorithm (controller) instructs a pneumatic arm to close (i.e. change the state of)
a window, one could presumably argue that the pneumatic arm is a control device
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