Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1472963
July/August/September 2022 I 41 BROWNFIELD SMART BUILDING DESIGN With nearly 6 million commercial buildings in the United States alone (according to the Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey), 350,000 industrial buildings (according to the Manufacturing Energy Consumption Survey) and 275,000 military buildings (according to the Department of Defense Base Structure Report), brownfield projects are far more common than greenfield projects, but they are talked about much less. To compare these numbers to new construction, there are only 200,000 new projects under way in the United States within the last year. This includes projects in all phases, according to Dodge Data and Analytics. A mix of different topologies can often be found (e.g., bus, ring, star). During planning, it is important to keep existing locations, sizes, configurations, and contents of pathways and spaces in mind. Existing cabling infrastructure often poses challenges with a menagerie of cables and connectors used over the years, many with different ratings. For these reasons, visions of new technology and capabilities must be tempered with the reality of the environment. What is possible and what is not? What works for one existing building may not work for another. Buildings are designed to last decades or longer, so creativity is needed in order to turn a 60-year-old building into a facility that can use technology to enable efficient and economical use of resources. Based on these factors, a brownfield project could vary from a simple bootstrap upgrade to a major forklift upgrade, and everything in between, which requires significant changes to the existing IT infrastructure. To support the technologies and applications needed for smart buildings—such as PoE, IoT, distributed antenna systems (DAS), 5G, and Wi-Fi—new cabling and connectivity requirements are emerging. In a brownfield project, distinct silos with established historical records already exist—whether they are separate, adjacent, or overlapping. There are also dynamic relationships and interplay to consider among existing contracts, responsibilities, liabilities, and capabilities. In addition to managing traditional costs, resources, and time constraints, brownfield smart buildings must work around many existing restrictions and limitations. This can include anything from legacy platforms and systems to fully occupied buildings and facility layouts that cannot be changed. These situations create addi- tional complexities that may be significantly different from those found in greenfield projects. From an ICT perspective, legacy systems in brownfield projects often have to be integrated with new systems, technology, and network architectures. Using healthcare as an example once again, the following questions should be asked: How mature is the existing technology? Nurse call systems may be in place for 25 or 30 years, which means they may not have been built for Ethernet or IP, making integra- tion difficult. What is the expected lifespan of this technology? Are there end-of-life concerns? Systems like these cannot simply be taken offline or removed and swapped out for something new. They must remain operational until a new system or new infrastructure is installed, tested, and verified, including its integration with other smart building systems.