It feels like most of the smart building investment being planned at the moment is going into buildings that are already smart…and that's worth paying attention to. For a decade the “cool” work was always new build. A wonderful clean sheet of paper to specify what you wanted and hand over something that was clever from day one (or Smart from the Start if you like a rhyme).
We fitted those buildings for an occupancy pattern that has since changed, and we did it before most owners had any discipline about the data those systems produce. What's left is a large install-base that's underused, poorly tuned, or solving problems that no longer exist. The retrofit wave is the industry going back to correct that, and the commercial case behind it is stronger than almost anything in new development at the moment.
The reason is a commercial story rather than a technical one (but for the purposes of this article, I’m gonna skip over normal obsolescence). Retrofitting an occupied, income-producing asset means working around tenants, around existing service contracts, and around a building management system that someone signed a fifteen-year support agreement on. The technology is rarely the constraint for most projects, ownership is. Who pays, who carries the risk, and who owns the upstream processes and control that sits above the incumbent kit - those are the questions that decide whether a retrofit happens, and they're more-often-than-not, financial decisions.
Lifts are a good test case. Destination control was specified on peak-flow assumptions: manage the morning rush, optimise the up-peak, batch people efficiently into a building filling to 90% by 9am. A lot of offices now run at 40% on a Monday and 90% on a Wednesday, with arrivals spread across 2 hours rather than 20 minutes. The dispatch logic hasn't moved, and I've sat in lobbies watching an algorithm group people for a surge that no longer comes, delivering worse waiting times at low occupancy than a basic call system would. Retuning that logic for hybrid patterns is cheap relative to the capital already sunk in the equipment. The friction for something like this isn’t one cost or capability, it's that the dispatch firmware that usually belongs to the lift manufacturer, so the conversation is contractual before it's technical. Owners who understand that, get the upgrade. Those who treat it as a maintenance item, don't.
Experience apps deserve a harder commercial look than they tend to get. Most were bought during fit-out as a feature list, justified on a business case nobody revisited, then left without an owner once the building was occupied. Two or three years of usage data now tells us what was worth paying for. Room booking, visitor management and live desk availability are used constantly. The in-app coffee order, the mobile lift call and the helpful note that the gym is quiet are largely ignored and sometimes actively disliked. A serious refresh is mostly subtraction. Retire the features no one opens, fund the few that drive daily use, and put a single accountable owner against the product. Treating these platforms as a one-off capital purchase rather than a managed product is why so many of them publicly decay.
Energy is where the next generation of AI will prove itself. The first wave of energy optimisation was, for the most part, conventional rules with a presentation layer. What's emerging now is closer to genuine model-predictive control, learning a building's thermal response and acting ahead of demand using weather, occupancy and tariff signals. It works, but only on a foundation most buildings don't yet have - a clean data taxonomy, a coherent ontology, and a control layer governed properly above the existing BMS. Get the data structure wrong and the model is confidently inaccurate, which is worse than no model at all. The owners who invested in data quality years ago can act now. The rest face a sequencing problem and a hefty proposal from a specialist.
The common thread is capital discipline. The opportunity rewards owners who treat their building systems as a portfolio of assets to be managed, measured and periodically corrected, rather than a fit-out cost, or some last minute “smart sprinkles” to be forgotten. A more sensible smart is less visible than a new development, and considerably less fun to announce. The returns, though, are sitting inside buildings the industry has already paid for, and the firms that take it seriously will hold a measurable advantage within a few years.
In Dr Marson’s monthly column, he’ll be chronicling his thoughts and opinions on the latest developments, trends, and challenges in the Smart Buildings industry and the wider world of construction. Whether you're a seasoned pro or just starting out, you're sure to find something of interest here.
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About the author:
Matthew Marson is an experienced leader, working at the intersection of technology, sustainability, and the built environment. He was recognised by the Royal Academy of Engineering as Young Engineer of the Year for his contributions to the global Smart Buildings industry. Having worked on some of the world’s leading smart buildings and cities projects, Matthew is a keynote speaker at international industry events related to emerging technology, net zero design and lessons from projects. He is author of The Smart Building Advantage and is published in a variety of journals, earning a doctorate in Smart Buildings.