Archives for April 2018

USC’s Dr. Burcin Becerik-Gerber wants to make buildings smarter and more efficient, which could mean offices with distinct ‘personalities’ like Alexa or Siri.

Imagine having a place that welcomes you back from the daily grind. Not just with the ideal temperature setting, but a location that’s “alive” and understands the type of music you need to hear or images you want to see, based in part on a readout from your wearable device.
That’s what Dr. Burcin Becerik-Gerber, a Stephen Schrank Early Career Chair in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Southern California, is building at USC’s iLab.

After studying architecture in her native Istanbul and completing an M.S. in Engineering at UC Berkeley and a doctorate in Project Management and Information Systems at Harvard, Dr. Becerik-Gerber joined USC in 2008 to research and create the future of interactive environments.
It’s a field where buildings are sentient; uniquely programmed to suit the needs of their residents, while being climate-aware and environmentally sustainable. PCMag spoke with Dr. Becerik-Gerber at her lab to learn more. Here are edited and condensed excerpts from our conversation.

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Growing up in Istanbul, famous for both 19th Century Ottoman Empire palacesand modern 53-story skyscrapers to rival Shanghai, no wonder you were edified by edifices. 
Actually, I became passionate about engineering and construction after the 7.6-magnitude earthquake which struck my city in 1999. I wanted to figure how to build safer and more efficient buildings, so applied to come to the US, to do my Masters in the Bay Area, because they had all these new and exciting technological advancements.
You’ve worked in industry and continue to do many real-world, grant-supported industrial collaborations. This isn’t just futuristic pontification about cool tech. 
Yes. After my studies at Harvard, I wanted to take a break, for both personal and financial reasons, so joined an environmental engineering firm to head up their program management software development team. We were building dashboards and solutions on billion-dollar construction projects. I was leading the team and collaborating with colleagues from many disciplines: computer engineers, civil engineers, consultants, and project managers.
What made you go back into academia, which is surely a less lucrative field?
[Laughs] Well, I decided I’m more of a researcher because I wanted to really think about what might be the future of our industry, to bridge all these different disciplines, and bring in social science. I saw, from my experience in industry, that we build places for people, but we don’t take into account how they use them.

That’s when you got interested in human-centric design and operation of buildings?
Yes. How do you understand what people need…or desire? It’s not a static, but a dynamic relationship. That’s where the computing part comes into place. In my work today, we bring in environmental and building sensors as well as human sensors, but the data have many dimensions so we need new tools to fuse, measure, and analyze them.
For example, we can record humidity, carbon dioxide, people’s heart rate, but how do you correlate this data to thermal comfort? There are seasonal shifts, metabolic changes, different comfort responses depending on the task you’re engaging with. We take these personal, situational, and temporal differences to build adaptive and responsive environments.

To further the actual mechanics of how buildings become sentient, you’ve co-authored many papers. Can you talk us through a few?
[One paper] looked at how to combat the fact that more than half of the electricity in residential and commercial buildings is consumed by lighting systems and appliances, which are directly associated with occupant activities. So, by recognizing activities and identifying the associated possible energy savings, more effective strategies can be developed to design better buildings and automation systems. We introduced a framework to detect occupant activities and potential wasted energy consumption and peak-hour usage that could be shifted to non-peak hours in real time, creating three sub-algorithms for action detection, activity recognition, and waste estimation.
Your research identified significant savings via this algorithmic-based platform.
Yes, 35.5 percent of the consumption of an appliance or lighting system on average was identified as potential savings.

But getting people to change behavior, in order to take advantage of these findings, required more work?
Right. We needed to build a more human-centric approach. In [another] paper, for which I was granted an NSF award, we considered ways to enhance the interaction between buildings and occupants, establishing trust with building automation. The work drew on theories from the behavioral sciences to mathematically model when and how a building should interact with a user and how these interactions should be framed.
How do you do that?
As an example, we conducted one project where we used VR to [see] whether people would behave more responsibly within a building branded as “green.” We built a simulation and observed the behavior of two groups. One group was told they were in a LEED-certified building, the other group was not. We found that people behaved so much better, in terms of energy usage, recycling and so on, when they were told the building was already “green.”

That was inside VR, can you talk about the specific technologies that you use to create your physical platforms?
Here at the lab, and in other testbed buildings we retrofit, we employ sensors from National Instruments, machine learning, LabVIEW, Data Loggers, and signal-processing tools. All the algorithms are created by my PhD students using C++, Python, and other software packages. We take data outputs from mobile phones, build models in Unity, use Oculus for VR, HoloLens for AR, and develop our own wearables.
You build your own wearables?
We’ve built lots of them. As an example, on one project, we 3D-printed helmets for construction workers, embedded with sensors, to examine fatigue levels, specifically for those working in hot climates. We’ve also 3D-printed infrared fitted eye glasses, here in the lab for sensing and monitoring thermal comfort.

Can you share a couple of your industry collaboration case studies with us, too?
The IoT company Lyngsoe Systems asked us to create an RFID-based indoor location-sensing platform, so they could track the movement of equipment and materials as they move towards lights-out automated 24/7 manufacturing. We also equipped a Lidar lab for the construction company Kiewit to track displacements using radar scanning on highly retaining walls. We are currently collaborating with a global engineering firm, Arup, to investigate the use of machine learning in improving office workers’ comfort, productivity, and health.
If those examples are about buildings being able to communicate with people, can you go further and illustrate what it’s like giving them a personality?
The engineering school here at USC made a podcast, which imagined a future building with its own personality called “Kate.” This illustrated my ultimate goal of enabling cyber-physical systems to interact and collaborate with humans.
Perhaps not everyone wants a “Kate” voice, though. 
Agreed. I really believe in complete personalization as cultural differences come into play on what kind of personality you’d most appreciate. We’ve done experiments where we’ve used virtual avatars, rather than voices, as in a building manager walking towards you.
Ultimately, I prefer the setup process to be as minimally intrusive as possible. The devices have to be more intelligent; it shouldn’t be a chore setting up these relationships, it should be frictionless. I see buildings as cognitive entities, similar to autonomous cars in a way. We spend 90 percent of our time indoors. Why can’t the building be your friend if you’re spending so much time in it? Essentially you’re inside the machine and everything becomes an interface. There are very beautiful buildings architecturally, but I want to make all buildings smarter, more sustainable, efficient, and resilient.
How far away is this scenario?
It’s happening now. It’s the right time for this field to flourish. We have the data, the machine-learning algorithms, society is now primed for personalization through our interactions with computing devices. Wearables are becoming ubiquitous. We can track everything. Plus the new generation expects everything to be personalized, why not buildings?

As a final question, what’s next for you?
I’m very excited to be spending the summer at the Alan Turing Institute, as a Rutherford Fellow, furthering my research on “disaster prepared buildings.” I’ll be working with several scientists on data-driven engineering design under uncertainty to find better solutions for the future of buildings and the humans that live/work in them.
By: S.C. Stuart (PC)
Click here to view source article.

Well before weeds first germinate, the battle for control of turfs across multifamily communities begins. It used to be that a couple of good shots of weed killer earned the upper hand pretty quickly for maintaining an immaculate landscape in multifamily.
That’s changed now. The cost and ability to establish and uphold the perfect turf is challenging green thumbs all over. Increased scrutiny of powerful weed control chemicals and “cosmetic herbicides” like glyphosate and Monosodium Methanearsonate (MSMA) is limiting options. In some cases, the weeds are winning.
Last year, South Portland, ME, banned certain lawn-and-garden pesticides and herbicides deemed unhealthy for the environment and humans. The Portland suburb is joining a number of cities that have banned or restricted products that have made quick work of weeds and grasses that clutter lawns.
Many replacement herbicides are not as effective and require multiple treatments, and the problem doesn’t always go away. Lawns that were once weed free and thrived are spotted with weeds unless manually removed, which requires expensive labor.
The beauty of working with herbicides like MSMA and glyphosate was that it usually only took one application—no matter the time of year and as long as it didn’t rain for 24 hours—and weeds were on their way out.
Those were the good old days.

Cities banning, restricting powerful herbicides

In 2006, the wheels were set in motion to eliminate MSMA when water samples from two Florida golf courses tested high for arsenic. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency subsequently cancelled the registration of MSMA for agricultural and turf grass management because of a concern that organic arsenic from MSMA could convert into a more toxic organic form.
By 2013, MSMA had all but disappeared from mainstream use and turf management lost a tried and true weed killer. MSMA, which has been around since the ’60s, is a broad spectrum herbicide most effective for control of grasses and broadleaf weeds. It is one of the best known for treating the stalky Dalis grass, which is problematic for southern landscapes.
Since the demise of MSMA, glyphosate, a general use herbicide found in some weed control products, has come under fire. Nearly two dozen states—with California leading the way—have restricted or banned glyphosate. In July, Tennessee became the third state to enact a ban, and in November Moms Across America began a campaign to forbid it across the U.S.

A perfect lawn takes more fortitude

Alternative weed control is not as potent as MSMA and glyphosate and often requires multiple applications under the right conditions. One of the better options is Celsius WG, which controls more than 150 broadleaf weeds and grasses that clutter turf grass.
Usually, it takes multiple applications up to two or three weeks before dormancy, and a number of environmental factors affect the required frequency and effectiveness of the treatments.
Celsius WG is a good alternative, but using it and other weed control products now require patience. The process to eliminate unsightly weeds and grasses is longer and costs more because of multiple applications. In some cases, weeds cannot be completely removed unless they are dug from the ground.
Your lawn care specialist knows the importance of healthy turf, especially in those green belts common at suburban multifamily communities. Green, weed-free lawns enhance curb appeal.
Just be patient. Perfection now takes a little more time and fortitude.
By: Chris Lee (Property Management Insider)
Click here to view source article.

Real estate investors know that healthy buildings are a good thing, but an increasing amount of evidence is emerging to show that they are also good business.
While it remains hard for investors to see the benefits of a healthy building in their bottom line, there are more tools than ever before which allow occupiers to quantify the benefits of wellness for productivity. In time, this should translate into higher rents and capital values.
In an interview with National Real Estate Investor last year, John Mooz, Senior Managing Director for Hines in Houston, said buildings with healthy features could attract a rental premium of up to 20 percent.
Building wellness measures might include better access to daylight, noise reduction and increased ventilation to help employees feel more comfortable year-round. A building might also offer healthy eating options or be designed to encourage walking, while offices could feature “biophilic design” elements, such as indoor gardens which are intended to bring nature indoors.
Where the industry is today on healthy buildings, is similar to where green buildings were 10 to 15 years ago, according to Matthew Clifford, Head of Energy and Sustainability Services, Asia Pacific – JLL.
“Landlords are experimenting with promising technologies and techniques, in order to work towards a clear understanding of exactly how to maximise the value and output.”
“Leading firms understand they are in the ‘early adopter’ phase, but see enough value and benefits, especially in terms of communicating wellness plans to staff and occupiers, that they continue to push ahead,” he added.
JLL is one of the sponsors of a series of studies on the “Cognitive Effects of Green Buildings”; carried out by scientists in the U.S. The studies showed that working in high-performing green certified office buildings produced 26.4 percent higher cognitive test scores, 30 percent fewer symptoms of “sick building” problems, such as headaches and dry throats, and even better sleep.
The survey, carried out in 10 U.S. office buildings, is now being extended to 100 buildings worldwide.
Ruben Langbroek, Head of Asia Pacific real estate at ESG benchmarking organisation GRESB, says healthy buildings can lead to significant financial gains for occupiers. “If you look at environmental sustainability measures – such as conservation of water and energy use – there are financial gains from cost saving.”
“However, compared with human resources, real estate is a smaller part of a corporation’s costs. If a company can improve employee productivity or reduce absenteeism by occupying healthy buildings, the gains can be very significant.”
For example, it is estimated that absenteeism costs U.S. employers an average of more than US$2,000 per employee each year.
Langbroek adds: “Being able to attract and retain talent is also important to corporations and providing healthy indoor environments that support occupant satisfaction and well-being aid this.”
The Urban Land Institute’s Building Healthy Places Institute undertook a series of interviews with developers of healthy buildings for a report entitled “Building for Wellness: the business case”.
The study – which covered residential, office and mixed-use projects – found developers reported better-than-expected sales and leasing. The study also found that the cost of healthy buildings was lower than expected. Other studies have placed the additional costs of well buildings at US$10-40 per square meter.
Retail property can also benefit from wellness initiatives, a study by the World Green Building Council found in 2016. “Evidence shows greener, healthier retail stores – those which typically have good levels of daylight, fresh air and greenery – are becoming more attractive to consumers and potentially more profitable for retailers,” the report said.
Developers and investors now have wellness standards and benchmarks for their portfolio. The International Well Building Institute’s WELL certification programme has registered or certified nearly 800 projects worldwide and is now working to streamline itself with LEED certification.
JLL’s office in Shanghai recently achieved WELL Platinum certification – the third such certification globally, and the first outside North America.
“So far, the office has been a tremendous success, with high levels of engagement from staff, and it has become a showcase to clients and colleagues on what can be done with careful planning and execution,” says Clifford.
GRESB has launched a health and wellness module in addition to its standard ESG assessment. “Demand for this was driven by both investors who want to invest responsibly and generate positive social impact, and managers who want recognition for their efforts,” says Langbroek.
“In 2017, about one-third of the total GRESB Real Estate participants took part in the Health & Well-being Module and we expect to further grow our coverage this year. At the same time, the Module will become more granular in assessing this aspect of real estate companies, funds and their portfolios.”
Click to read more about why investors should care about workplace wellness
By: Matthew Clifford (The Investor)
Click here to view source article.