The Science Looks at Smart Buildings, Really Smart Ones

We hear quite a bit about building earthquake-tolerant buildings but we sure as hell wouldn't want to be in one when the 'quake hits since they sway like a fat woman's backside.  While there's some insightful architecture required to make the building, the intelligence remains with the architect and is as s/he designed it.  For really smart buildings, we want awareness in buildings and scientists at MIT are well on the way to designing that.  (Science Daily:  With new model, buildings may 'sense' internal damage)

When a truck rumbles by a building, vibrations can travel up to the structure's roof and down again, generating transient tremors through the intervening floors and beams.  Now researchers have developed a computational model that makes sense of such ambient vibrations, picking out key features in the noise that give indications of a building's stability.  The model may be used to monitor a building over time for signs of damage or mechanical stress.

- Science Daily

At first that doesn't seem so cool as it seems they come around with their scientific stethoscopes and geiger counters or some damn things so they can make computations.  It's more than that as it turns out they did give the building 'awareness' since their model uses information the building collected itself.

The team tested its computational model on MIT's Green Building -- a 21-story research building made completely from reinforced concrete.  The building was designed in the 1960s by architect and MIT alum I.M. Pei '40, and stands as the tallest structure in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 2010, Toksöz and others at MIT worked with the United States Geological Survey to outfit the Green Building with 36 accelerometers that record vibrations and movements on selected floors, from the building's foundation to its roof.

"These sensors represent an embedded nervous system," Buyukozturk says.  "The challenge is to extract vital signs from the sensors' data and link them to health characteristics of a building, which has been a challenge in the engineering community."

- Science Daily

Presto, they made an 'aware' building.  Since every big truck rumbling by is essentially a minor earthquake this seems good awareness to have.

(Ed:  so now they will have a space program like those monkeys?)   (Ithaka:  The More We See Politics, The More We Want Monkeys)

That's the old sci fi from the last article and we want something different this time.

The scientists said their sensors become, in effect, the 'nervous system' for the building and feel free to make all the puns you like on being nervous in tall buildings ... but please do that somewhere else.

We want to know what happens with the next evolutionary step for these buildings since the next move after making a nervous system is to make a brain, right?

Tell me, Frank Lloyd Wright, what will that brain do and, for now, we will exclude using it to transplant itself somewhere else since the idea of buildings walking around is a little too weird for the Rockhouse even when most things are not.

(Ed:  "The Day of the Triffids" wasn't too weird for you and that one features giant carnivorous plants which walk around!)

Fair enough and maybe we can go with that.  Not only can buildings move themselves now but also they're predators.  Now instead of being limited to eating people in their horrible cubicles, they can eat everyone in the building and around it all at once.

(Ed:  that was more like a Tim Burton movie and maybe a little bit of sense wouldn't be too bad)

Well, I'll work on it and get back to you ... assuming the buildings don't get you first.