Internet of Things for BuildingsThe Semantics of Architecture

Deborah L. MacPhersonKalin Associates Inc.

July 2015

http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikekavis/2014/06/26/the-internet-of-things-will-radically-change-your-big-data-strategy/

By SRI Consulting Business Intelligence/National Intelligence Council [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The Internet of Things (IoT) includes huge quantities of things from all industries and sectors

Things about Buildings include sensors, materials, performance properties, geo-locations, and more

Semantics in Architecture

Names Have a Special Role in Human-Computer Interaction

First, there are things. Anything that anyone wants to say anything about, is a thing. Buildings, people, numbers, reports, whatever: they are all things. Note, there are also of course the linguistic tokens which are used to refer to things: nodes, names, words, numerals, whatever. It is OK for these names to be things themselves, but be very careful not to confuse a thing with its name. It is usually best, if you want names to be things, to keep them very strictly segregated from the other things, the ones they refer to, in order to avoid this very common confusion. Lumping names and the named together almost always causes things to break. People are often careless about the distinction, but its important.

Pat Hayes, Ontolog Forum, IHMC

People are smart. We can understand what something is without knowing it’s name. You have to tell a computer everything.

http://merc.tv/img/fig/umlmechs.gif

For Architects, Names Include•Elements•Files•Folders•Families•Categories

Together, these form file paths limited to 260 characters for storage

Repetition implies groupings and associations between things that may or may not be important in the real world of buildings

When a Name or Grouping is Wrong, Nobody Can Find Anything

In Real Life In a Model In the Specifications

Element NamesRevit TypicalFamily ClassElements ObjectsParameters Attributes

A family is a group of elements with a common set of properties, called parameters, and a related graphical representation

http://www.revitrocks.blogspot.com

http://www.edocfile.com/images/workordernumber2.jpg

File Names

Family Names Explains why elements in a group have similar properties

BIM

11 - Construction Entities by Function12 - Construction Entities by Form13 - Spaces by Function14 - Spaces by Form

21 - Elements (UniFormat)22 - Work Results (MasterFormat)23 – Products

31 - Phases32 - Services 33 - Disciplines34 - Organizational Roles35 - Tools36 - Information

41 - Materials49 - Properties

Consensus vs. Arbitrary Names

REVIT MEP Video Tutorial – Energy Data Setup

https://st.llnl.gov/data/assets/images/research_cali1.jpg

Source > Aggregation > Normalization > Interpretation

What TheyCall It

What ItSays

What ItReallySays

What ItMeans

http://www.healthcareguy.com/

Room Data Sheets

Better Names = Better Construction Documents

Why Do We Care About Interoperability or a realistic IoT for Buildings?

http://herdingcats.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341ca4d953ef0120a7ea6466970b-800wi

Because these are all databases