Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1472963
July/August/September 2022 I 29 The Duke Energy Center in Charlotte, North Carolina is a perfect example of a smart or intelligent building. Owned by Wells Fargo, this 51-floor skyscraper, with 48 occupied stories, is LEED Platinum, the highest green certification. According to an article in iOffice + SpaceIQ, "the building is able to reuse approximately 10 million gallons of harvested water each year, including ground- water, rainwater, and HVAC condensation, which meets roughly 80 percent of the cooling tower's water needs and 100 percent of the building's irrigation needs." 1 "There is a landscaped roof garden, which reduces storm water run-off and uses the plants to capture excess heat. Daylight harvesting blinds move with the angle of the sun to reflect light deeper into the interior, providing more natural light. The building's exterior was designed to look like a cut crystal and includes more than 45,000 LED lights that illuminate the building at night, displaying a light show at the top of every hour." 2 "Wells Fargo lights the Duke Energy Center in various colors to support events focused on Charlotte, including local nonprofit organizations, as well as various causes that connect directly with the local community. The @WFLightsCLT handle, which announces daily what the building is lit for, has more than 13,000 followers on Twitter. 3 FIGURE 1: The Duke Energy Center. The Duke Energy Center is leading the way to the future of smart/intelligent buildings. However, buildings were traditionally built to include a variety of systems Although, heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC), fire alarm, audiovisual (AV), lighting, and security. The biggest issue facing any building owner is that each of these systems operate independently of one another. Then, along comes smart/intelligent tech- nology. For the first time, owners have the opportunity to connect all of these systems into a cohesive converged system through a smart/intelligent building. Instead of seeing silos of information, building owners have situational awareness of everything that is happening at their fingertips in real time (Figure 1).