User-Centered Neighbourhood Services Enabled by Smart Building Technology
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Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Sähkötekniikan korkeakoulu |
Master's thesis
Authors
Date
2021-08-16
Department
Major/Subject
Electrical Power and Energy Engineering
Mcode
ELEC3024
Degree programme
AEE - Master’s Programme in Automation and Electrical Engineering (TS2013)
Language
en
Pages
85/08
Series
Abstract
Within the building sector over three decades an increasing amount of academic, popular, and industrial literature has been observed addressing smart buildings as a concept. Intense research has been done on improving the building automation system to incorporate smart tools and services. The traditional focus was on increasing efficiency of building automation system and providing indoor comfort to residents. However, certain area of this field is now aiming to become more user-centered during the last decade. In modern approach, smart building technology is now focusing to deliver more convenience to end user by emerging local services near to its neighbourhood and often in shared places, with an aim to respond to users’ needs. Certain types of neighbourhood services are moving closer to consumers which are enabled by smart technological solutions and their main competitive advantage is convenience. The objective of this thesis is to identify the technological solutions that act as enablers behind these user-centered services brought by smart building technology, as well as to determine the method by which these services deliver convenience to end users. Therefore, the study was conducted as a qualitative and quantitative multiple case study of seven companies delivering user-centered services at neighbourhood level. From the comparative analysis of the interview data, the thesis has identified the most relevant technological solutions which are required to enable these services. Furthermore, the analysis has concluded that, the services deliver convenience to end users in a multidimensional method. The outcome of this thesis has a novel insight of buildings being user-centered by delivering convenience, and not only by providing indoor comfort. This thesis can give a marginal view to the smart building field for designing buildings in a more user-centered way.Description
Supervisor
Ihasalo, HeikkiThesis advisor
Dooley, KennethKeywords
smart building, user-centered, neighbourhood services, convenience, technological solutions, user building interaction