Buildings for the Future
Peter Ball
Building Research Establishment
I would like to echo Patrick's comments about John persuading you to actually come and present and John phoned me and said he got a PhoneAbility seminar on smart living, would you come along and do a talk? I said yes I would love to John, always pleased to help out. How long would you like me to be? He said 15 minutes 78 slides. I said.... John , I can talk for England but I don't think I can do 78 slides in 15 minutes. He said no you miss heard me, 7 to 8 slides. So actually, I have actually got a few more but a lot of them are pictures and hopefully we'll have some fun engaging in the process today it is a topic I have been involved in. I have known John five or six years and we have worked on number of different projects in and around this theme and it is always a pleasure to present and share my views. Did this presentation yesterday, and it turned out to be a bit controversial because some of the basic principles were challenged but I don't think we will have too much trouble today because the speakers that have gone before me have set a very good scene and I think I am on safe ground. There's a few concepts I am going to challenge and hopefully we may have time for questions at the end. If not we can talk perhaps at lunch time.
So what I am going to talk about, you may think it is a bit vague who is Peter Ball as a slide but John phoned me and said 'I have Googled you and I can't find much about it you. I said I am not as famous as I used to be, so I sent him a few bios that were on page 17 and 18. I will tell you a bit about who I am and BRE, although Peter Bonfield told you a but by the organisation and I will give you few bullet points and we won't labour too much on that. What I am going to talk about is some of the challenges in homes and smart homes and then we are going to have a speak at the past, present and hopefully we'll look at the future as well and I will start to apply it to the subject we are talking about today and we'll talk about for the rest of the day then if we have time will do blue Sky thinking and ideas and we had our Conference recently and there are a great speakers that really set the future how technology may impact on us and how we interact with the built environment. At the end if we have time we'll share some questions and we have got a microphone to bring out to you.
So who am? Because I am not on Google you can't find me. I started as a builder, then worked for the Building Research Establishment but after a few career accidents, I ended up with a long background in IT and sometimes specialised areas of IT and a lot of innovation in around that area and developed solutions very much for the likes of Mastercard and Visa and actually got involved into credit card fraud. I should add preventing it, by the way, not causing it, and for that did get a couple of international innovation awards as part of a team in 2003. I have also been involved in technologies add did a project for a large stationary and office equipment come up in 2007, we came up with a concept we called the I-Pad which isn't too different to what you see today and they decided not to go for it because it wouldn't catch on!
Now I have got the best job I have ever had, I think my boss it still here at back, so I have got to say that, head of strategic research for the building research establishment BRE. Little bit about who they are, who we are. We’ve been around quite sometime and we are established as the building research establishment back in 1919 and then originally a Government funded organisation looking at fire safety, building integrity, building efficiency, quality building materials and as with many Government organisations we became a private company in 97 but actually opted to go for charitable status so that means we can plough all profits back into funding research and development in the built environment so we do a lot of research actually further ring causes like assisted living and smart living. Based in Garson in Watford. Why is that important? We have a fantastic park there, key leading edge technology for both sustainability agenda and also the assisted living agenda so if you get chance to come along to the innovation park you will get a lot out of your visit.
We have got key challenges in the construction sector. There are variable statistics, one or the earlier speakers quoted 70% of existing building stock we'll need 2050 is already there and currently we are short of around 3m homes so that gives major challenges in delivering new homes and new technology but also retro fitting existing ones and it is not just for a future living capabilities but also from the energy efficiency point of view, we are running out of fossil fuels, most is running into the gulf in America at the moment sadly it is a fact nearly half of the CO 2 emissions are from buildings and we have got to reduce that and there are targets set, long term goal of 2050. But there seems to be missed or moved targets as somebody said yesterday, we have not missed the targets, we have just moved them, it is a key agenda, we really need to address the carbon issues and energy efficient buildings and we are doing a lot of that at the innovation park and I will share some of that with you in a few moments. We are seeing a dramatic rise in how people live. It's a fact, however, that nearly half of the emission for C02 is from buildings and we have to reduce that and there are targets with a long term goal of 2050 but there seem to be missed or moved targets. We have just moved them. This is a key agenda for us. We really need to address the carbon emissions and energy efficient buildings and we're doing a lot of that and we'll share this with you. We're seeing a dramatic rise in how people live and a huge rise in the 20s and 30s, who are using single home accommodation. But also as we know the focus of today is the increasing aging population. A statistic given to me was one in 6 or one in 7 was the ratio of earning people versus plus 65 retired post war post 1945. It's now closer to one in three or four. So an increasing challenge meeting the needs of our aging population and I look around and I suggest we're it in the future. We're getting very close to being that aging population.
I thought it would be useful to have a bit of fun and I did this exercise with my daughter, who is 13, going on 14. I said I wonder what people saw as smart homes or how we'd be living in 1950, so we started to do Googling. We all Google now. We came up with initially this vision of a 50s home which my daughter loved because she has wacky tastes but that looks like nothing that represents a modern home of today, but this is 1950 and it's gadget oriented and we thought lots of gadgets to feed our lifestyle. This is the valet and combing the guy's ear and straightening his tie and cleaning his shoes and the little one is the kitchen bot so it seemed we'd use technology for our convenience and future lifestyle.
This is an absolute cracker. This is the ultra sonic bath because this is from 1970. I did cheat a little bit. This was demonstrated at the ideal home exhibition in 1970 and was going to be the future of bathing. About 8' or 9‑foot high. You need a ladder to get into it and the bathing experience lasts 15 minutes but you're guaranteed to come out clean on that. I had a similar experience in something called the shower this morning and the conclusion is very much the same. Didn't involve about 5 giga watts of energy to power it. So peculiar views in 1950s about how we'd live today but none anticipated the challenge with the increasing aging population and the challenges in single occupancy living.
Then finally, you can't read the letters on it, but it says everything in a house is waterproof she can do her daily cleaning with a hose.
I don't think that needs more comment. Let's look at some of the current view of future homes. I'm pleased to announce some great demonstrations at our innovation park at Watford that I mentioned and looking towards the house on the left there, that is the first sustainable home. The house on the left is the first (inaudible) and the one you can see in the corner is an SIPS home made of installation panels and the reason I'm showing is we've got some demonstrations of current technology and likely these are setting the actual trends.
The building in the foreground is a modern polyclinic and demonstrates interesting interactions of when one does leave the home and needs to interact with what is likely to be the future health service. Just around the corner, I didn't include it, is a home kitted out with a technology called KNX which allows interconnectivity of lots of devices and I've got a colleague Graham Webb who is here so if you need more information on that, I'll point you in his direction. That shows you can add new devices and get interoperability between new products on the market place so a great demonstration facility at Watford of some of the wonderful new technologies which are setting the base mark where we'll be in terms of sustainable living and also future living regardless of the actual age group.
This is a ‑‑ I meant to get a photograph because this is obviously an artist's impression but believe me the one in the middle we've got one of those. It's great. I was determined to hate it when it arrived on four lorries but actually it's a fantastic facility. It actually forms the facility, and "facility" is a derogatory term, it's a great home inside and it's made out of recycled steel frame and very innovative and exciting and gives a very low cost entry into homes and can be kitted out with lots of the technology and gizmos we have heard a lot about this morning and will hear more about this afternoon.
It's not just about new building. This is actually a pity I didn't take my camera to the innovation park on Monday. It looks scruffy in the photograph but this is our Victorian terrace which we have gone through a retro fitting programme to demonstrate the refitting of existing homes and we're going to use it for a test bed technology and be able to try and ‑‑ new technologies out in the retro fit environment because, depending on whose figures you read, we've got something like 70 to 80 per cent of existing building stock we have to use and live in for the next 50 to a hundred years.
What about the future? We know we have heard about some of the key challenges with regard to carbon emissions and the changes in demographics that has been covered by myself and previous speakers. But you know I presented this yesterday and I was a little bit surprised by the reaction that I got from the audience because I'm not convinced and clearly John Gill isn't convinced that anything designed specifically for a target group is the way we should go. It has to be inclusive design. So any specialist technologies or applications have to be configured for the general audience. What I'm going to do over the next few minutes is go through a few examples how that can be illustrated and how the technologies actually apply to all age groups and demographics.
Because if they're not developed for mass market and mainstream, some of them will be very, very expensive and with the current state ‑‑ Peter was at a health conference recently and apparently it's 120 billion now they spend on the health service, so we're expecting a 10 to 15 per cent cut largely from the state and infrastructure and not the front line services as Mr Clegg and Mr Cameron promised to drive down the cost.
I've chosen two personas and I was going to Google a photograph but I got some cheesy images and you're an imaginative audience so I'll let you pick your own photographs and picture some of this technology. I've picked out perhaps what someone in the target group will refer to today in the conference and it's Martin. Actually, he has got a lot of the traits. He probably represents someone like my father. My father is relatively fit. I do live 40 miles away from him. He has a passion for music and retired and he still has my mother in tow so unfortunately Martin is a widower. Give you an idea of that persona and I'll compare him to I thought Craig sounds a modern name. Any Craigs in the audience? No. I got away with it (Laughter). A modern name in terms of young and up and coming executive. He's actually an international business development manager. Put that in the back of your mind. Training for the London marathon. Very fit but suffers from eczema and lives relatively close to his family. He has a passion for rock and probably went to the monsters of rock concert and got wet, as my son did on Sunday. I want to compare their living styles and show you how they integrate with this smart technology.
Martin actually uses a smart phone. He actually has ‑‑ does have a bed detector fitted but opted into a healthcare package which allows him to be monitored in his own home. Motion detectors in the home actually indicate if he's actually moving to a standard set of behaviours. It's actually I'm describing a project we're involved in which is part of the TSB assisted living programme and we're developing some difference in the sensors and technology, but I think it was said earlier by Martin that this technology already exists out there in one way or another.
His room is lit by energy efficient (inaudible) and as Peter describes you can affect people's mood with colours so if he's feeling down or the smart home senses frustration it will adjust the mood lighting to suit him and pick him up.
Craig also uses a smart phone. He's got a bed detector. That's a odd thing for a young guy but he's training for the London marathon and signed up to an advanced fitness programme. Which allows him to the system to monitor his sleep and I'm going to talk about his diet in a moment. He uses the motion detector fitted into his home as part of the security system. He's an international business development manager so he's often away from his home and out of the country and it's linked to his home security system.
He also has the room lighting and control but he use it's to influence the mood of his visitors as well. So it's the same technology, but used in a slightly different purpose.
I think guarantee the first sign of life in your house today was when you actually filled the kettle and brushed your tooth or jumped in the shower or whatever and drew cold water into the house. That's a good sign to actually benchmark in terms of measuring the first signs of life in a home. Martin has the sensors which actually also measure his indoor climate and connected with the external temperature which ensures his home is heated to an acceptable level if he forgets to adjust the heating to make him comfortable. When he gets up he goes into the kitchen, a modern kitchen, a bit like the fridge from the conference in Brussels where Martha was talking and ordering. It reads labels and ensures in getting a good balanced diet and gives him ideas for menu and food options. He's environmentally conscious. He can make predictions and barter with the water company in terms of how much he pays for his water bill so drive down his costs. My kids, 14 and 18 this year, are very environmentally aware and they're getting very anxious about miss using the natural resources we have. So this age group and above are very aware of what is happen anything the environment and the whole waste issue.
He uses sensors to monitor the temperature in his home to maximise on his energy. When he gets too hot or cold it affects his eczema so he actually ensures that the sensors are set to a very, very strict temperature so it doesn't aggravate his eczema and reduce the quality of his life.
He uses the smart kitchen as well and he has that linked to his fitness programme which works out his nutritional benefit to ensure he's a superb diet to maintain and improve his levels of fitness. A few more and then we'll move on.
The touch screen for the T V is a central focus of his home. He uses video conferencing and social networking is a big part of his life. He also uses it to interface with his local GP and hospitals and has regular data uploads of his medical data to ensure he's keeping fit and well.
Just a few more slides in then we'll move on. The touch screen TV for Martin is central focus of his home, he uses multi-way video conferencing and electronic social networking has become a big part of his life and he also used it to interface with the local GP and hospitals and has regular data up load of medical data to ensure he is keeping fit and well.
Craig's in a very similar situation, he uses a touch screen very much for social networking but also he measures his carbon footprint, his international business travel is a lot so tries to use mull the way video conferencing with customers and linked into this fitness programme he chooses to actually have his medical data with the fitness programme and is in regular dialogue with his GP to ensure his health is exemplary for running the Marathon that he's looking forward to.
We have got a different view of home automation. It is all about health and well-being nowadays. The health services funding it us unsustainable we can't carry on spending 120m a year for the same services for reactive health. We have got to stop people getting ill people are living longer we have to provide an infrastructure to allow them to maintain their life in their own home and don't become isolated.
Very much in terms of resource management, we are running out of natural resources so it is everybody's responsibility and a lot of this is being driven by the entertainment marketplace, I wish we had 100 mega bits Broadband where I live, I suspect most of you do. They do in Korea, we lag behind the world in that. I was going to talk about access, control, security, mentioned earlier, accessibility because you can take another persona, someone who visually impaired and so on and the so forth but it is, I think Martin said it is all about quality of life so and we can actually use that technology to actually deliver and maintain the quality of life for us all.
But it has to be affordable. It has to be mainstream technology. So if Craig and Martin's demographics represent about 50% of the population in the next ten or 15 years we have to make the technology applicable to both their lifestyles and I think we can do that ---- (this incident control, just to let you know the incident have been investigated and there's no cause for action on behalf of staff. Thank you very much) that's good. Just got a couple of minutes let do a bit of blue sky thinking and a few blue sky ideas. We had our BRE Conference last month, fantastic concepts, some a mix of mine and a mix of those presented at the Conference, bearing in mind we're all about the built environment. What we are seeing is wearable technologies How many of you, looking at the ladies in the room have a battle with thermostats, you turn it up, your partner turns it down and so on. What about if your built environment reacted with your wearables to give you comfort levels. We are seeing this come into mainstream and this is part of your future smart home, smart building technology so you are comfortable in your personal climate. In my own home the biggest energy drains the TVS, the flat screen in the lounge, the PC monitors, all flat screen and laptops. I am excited by the concepts what about replacing all of those, massive energy saving but actually is replaced with contact lenses we wear stimulated by laser to great 3D images. I see people wincing at the concept of images so close to your eye. I have not seen it myself, but it excites me it's fabulously energy saving, you get the same information, a richer experience and personal to you as well.
With that you can get digital architecture so you see the environment the way you want to see it because you set your various characteristics as part of how you want to interact with the environment and how you want to interact with other people as well so you get, the personal choice thing coming through how do you interact with the environment? All your settings are actually integrated into skin based electronics, like a tattoo, and the electronics are put into your skin so when you walk into a room you get the personal settings configured because the smart building said Peter Ball is here and he likes it a bit cooler than his wife and it adjusts that environment and also the wearable technology. A bit blue sky thinking, forward thinking but these are things coming down the wire.
Hopefully I have covered all those I promised we would talk about those. You know a bit about me and BRE, the smart home challenges, looked at past present and future and a bit of blue sky thinking. We were going have questions but I think I have gone a bit over so on this occasion if there are any questions or anything you want to challenge, or discuss I will be here over lunch and the rest of day so I would be delighted to discuss the concepts and ideas with you. Thank you very much.