Abstract
Contemporary buildings are expected to meet an extensive set of requirements. They must be conceived, constructed, and operated in a manner that is functionally adequate, environmentally sustainable, occupationally desirable, and economically feasible. Moreover, buildings must increasingly accommodate different user groups, a varied set of activities, and multiple indoor environmental control systems. Accordingly, the optimization of the overall performance of buildings represents a non-trivial task and requires effective and well-tuned technologies. Specifically, the configuration and calibration of environmental control systems in buildings has been shown to be difficult and prone to failures, particularly in large-scale facilities. This paper explores the notion of sentient building technologies and its potential to address certain aspects of indoor environmental control problems in buildings. Specifically, it describes an approach to the integration of simulation-based predictive decision-making repertoire of building control systems.
