Page 57 - Green Builder July-August 2017 Issue

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SMART CITIES

The Intelligence of ‘Smart’ Thinking

An introduction to development of smart communities: homes, towns and villages, and cities.

BY TERRY BEAUBOIS
A Design for All
This is the first in a series of articles about the increasing global interest The next pivot on our ecoSMART House Project occurred during a
in smart communities and how this relates to green building in the U.S. visit to Turku, Finland, where I was speaking at a conference. One
Some consideration and awareness of related international developments evening, a professor I knew there invited me to dinner at his home.
will be included. We will present an overview of a range of buildings: During the course of the delicious Finnish dinner, I asked the
homes (single-family houses and condominiums), towns and villages, professor’s wife how her work with Disability Design, a health and
and smart cities.
welfare research center, was going. She said they had decided to
The goal of these articles is to provide good, useful information to the change the name of the program to “Design for All.” They wanted
building industry about smart communities: A better planned house, to change the thinking about accommodating people with different
development or entire city is critical to improving the quality of life requirements to thinking about designing spaces for all people.
globally. Recognizing the size and complexity of all factors involved in In our project, we had a young woman—a wheelchair user—
the total scope of the building industry is important, too.
for whom we were designing the ecoSMART home. This was an
opportunity to implement “Design for All” right away. I hired her to
“What do you mean by ‘smart’?” work in our Creative Research Lab at Montana State University and
Identifying and describing what “smart” is—when it applies to a
home, village or a city—is important, because the term is thrown
around a lot lately.
The way I use “smart” may be more inclusive than how others do.
Some people limit “smart” to technology or Internet of Things (IoT)
items and issues. For them, that may be appropriate. My definition
of “smart” includes IoT, but is not limited to it. As an architect who
approaches things using Architectural Design Thinking, I look at
the entire ecosystem of the building or project to consider how
we can make the built environment “smart.” This includes green,
sustainable, resilient, appropriate and other categories that benefit Starting point. The REHAU MONTANA ecoSMART House Project
projects seeking to maintain or improve quality for people, all while became the opening step in examining smart communities worldwide.
incorporating advances in technology that contribute to the human research what she thought the house should have. She also made
health, safety and security in smart communities. a short video of her ability to get around the house she currently
lived in, pointing out features that worked and didn’t work for her.
Emphasizing that “Smart Buildings” Is About “People” Thanks to her experience, we learned things that we might not have
In 2010, during the research phase of our Bozeman, Mont. ecoSMART discovered.
House Project, my team was exploring the idea of “sustainable During the ecoSMART House Project, it became clearer that my
products.” We were discussing sustainable roofing, sustainable approach to “smart” buildings would truly prioritize the people for
siding and sustainable flooring material, walls and appliances when whom buildings—of all types—are being designed. While I had
I remembered a short story I’d heard as a boy. Late one night, while been always had an awareness of these needs before, I started to
listening to the transistor radio I had snuck under my pillow, the understand them together in a more coherent way: smarter. GB
program “X Minus One” had a reading of the short story, “There Will
Come Soft Rains” by Ray Bradbury. Terry Beaubois, a designer and architect, is founding director of the
In this story, a high-tech house is going through its programmed Creative Research Lab at Montana State University, and was the MSU
motions. The people are missing. And what is revealed in the story Project Director of the REHAU-Montana ecoSMART House Project. The
made me think, “Wait—we should be talking about how to keep project was awarded the Montana USGBC Honor Award Project of the
humans around—and not just materials.” Remembering this was a Year in January 2016, as well as a Green Builder House of the Year Award.
®
pivot in our research. How do we further elevate human sustainability He is currently CEO of the internet startup BKS (Building Knowledge
in our consideration of building design? Systems LLC) and is an adjunct lecturer at Stanford University.

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