Developing a Scoring System to Evaluate the Level of Smartness in Commercial Buildings: A Case of Sri Lanka

Smart buildings (SBs) are developed in many different ways and are self-proclaimed smart. There are a great number of publications introducing smart systems using a wider range of tools and sensors. However, the level of smartness, functions of the smart system, and the usefulness of the system are not the same, which may give a wrong impression to clients or potential buyers of a building. Developing a scoring system that enables determining the overall smartness of a building is necessary. Despite the necessity, there is a dearth of studies in this area. Hence, the purpose of this study is to develop a scoring system to evaluate the level of smartness of Sri Lankan commercial buildings. Thus, initially, smart criteria were identified, defined, and categorized through a literature survey. Subsequently, 35 experts in the commercial building sector were interviewed. Finally, the relative importance of the smart criteria was derived through the AHP technique, and accordingly, a scoring system was developed. The study identified six main criteria to evaluate the smartness of buildings in the scoring system. The automation criterion with the highest relative weight was concluded to be the dominant criterion (45.59%) in the scoring system. Communication and data sharing were placed at second with a relative weight of 18.76% and indicates the importance given by the study findings in establishing the backbones of SBs. Occupants’ comfort, energy management, occupants’ health and safety, and sustainability criterion were ranked third, fourth, fifth, and sixth within the scoring system. This study is one of the first to investigate in detail the contribution of both soft and hard services of a facility in determining the overall smartness of a building. Property developers in the commercial building sector can benefit from this study by recognizing the necessary criteria to be embedded in their SB development projects in order to attract more tenants and customers.

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