Tom is a highly motivated smart buildings engineer with experience in the design and delivery of digitally innovative projects. He works closely with clients to understand their aspirations and ultimately improve people’s experiences through well considered and people-centric digital solutions.
Tom lead the delivery of multiple smart buildings projects across Canada, the USA, Australia, the UK and Europe; working with international and cross discipline teams to realise each client’s digital vision.
His fascination with understanding how things work led him to engineering, where his creativity and flexibility as a smart buildings consultant have seen him take great strides forward in his career. Working on Dublin’s North Docks Development has allowed Tom to deliver industry leading outcomes through innovative smart building technologies.
What inspired you to become an engineer?
I have always been fascinated with how things work and was always taking things apart when growing up to explore the technical intricacies. I enjoyed problem solving mixed with an element of creativity which led perfectly into pursuing engineering.
Why digital (smart buildings)?
With smart buildings being such a new discipline when I started, it allowed me to have the creativity and flexibility to have my own influence over how things are done. Smart buildings is an exciting field as it combines technical knowledge of the more traditional engineering disciplines mixed in with new innovative and ground breaking technologies and software platforms that really do have a huge impact for people using a given space. The breadth of the discipline means every day is a new challenge and no two days are the same. Tasks can vary from portfolio digital transformation strategies across a town, to optimising the health and wellbeing of occupants within a space, to defining new operational workflows and processes for facilities management staff.
What’s your career highlight project?
A recent career highlight project is North Docks Development in Dublin. The project comprises two commercial properties within a campus with sizeable public realm and communal townhall spaces. The project aimed to push the boundaries of smart building technologies to provide an industry leading user experience within the space while also enhancing sustainability, wellness and operational efficiency. Our client had significant aspirations and challenged us to push the boundaries on the solutions being designed and implemented.
Tell us about the smart buildings engineering on this project.
Pervasive IoT technologies were deployed throughout the site to monitor granular data such as occupancy counts and air quality metrics.
The data across all IoT technologies and MEP systems are being integrated into a smart building platform which can analyse all data and report on inefficiencies in real-time, while also self-optimising to ensure the optimal and most efficient conditions. The smart building platform also serves as a single pane of glass to view the data for all systems, technologies and services and provide a single, consolidated and unified interface to manage the estate. This has provided a step change in how buildings are and will be managed moving forward. An innovative feature I am particularly passionate about is the layering of the occupancy and air quality data sets to optimise the operation of HVAC systems, allowing the building to pump the correct amount of air for the number of occupants within a space to reduce wasted energy while improving comfort.
What innovative new approaches are you seeing when it comes to smart buildings?
The increase in AI and automation is rapidly gaining traction with solutions having the capability to self-optimise based on data driven insights and optimise operation in real-time. Additionally, the growing adoption of cloud-based systems will allow ease of portfolio management and will start to signal the shift from ‘smart buildings’ to ‘smart portfolios’.
If you’ve worked across regions or countries, and/or across Tetra Tech operating units, can you tell us about the key similarities and differences you’ve encountered when it comes to design within your field and your projects?
I have been fortunate to work across several global regions. There are multiple similarities such as the desire to improve sustainability, enhance user experiences and increase data availability. The key differences relate to how projects are delivered, for example, the different work stages and working processes that are undertaken. Projects often differ significantly to the UK RIBA stages of work, with delivery of documentation in different formats and collaboration in different ways hence understanding the regional differences is key to ensuring successful delivery and close collaboration with each client and design team.
Where do you see the future of smart buildings design heading?
As sustainability targets grow more ambitious, smart buildings will play a central role in providing solutions to help meet them.
Smart building systems will also be deployed for enhanced monitoring and ongoing performance tuning throughout the lifecycle of an asset to both enhance the efficiency of its operation and maximise lifespan.
In addition, as more and more buildings become smart, we will begin to see a transition from ‘smart buildings’ to ‘smart portfolios’ and ‘smart cities or towns’.
What tech are you playing with at the moment?
Exploring different air quality sensors is an area of interest due to the importance of the role they play in creating and maintaining healthy spaces. Exploring different sensors and comparing their accuracy allows us to recognise the best products on the market and put forward the most suitable solutions on projects.
Additionally exploring the capabilities of AI is another area, with its role in buildings due to grow in years to come.
What legacy do you want to leave, when it comes to your career?
I’d like to have made a positive impact across the industry, both in terms of delivering industry leading and innovative projects, while also contributing to improvements in sustainability across the built environment.
What is it like for young engineers in smart buildings?
It is a very exciting field to be in. Smart buildings touches on all building services disciplines, and as such you are required to have a level of knowledge and understanding of all core disciplines such as mechanical, electrical, lighting, security, ICT etc. On top of this, the discipline also works with the operational management of buildings such as maintenance and work orders. The opportunities to learn are endless and provide a holistic view of all building services.
Tell us a bit about good smart buildings design. What are the key considerations?
Good smart building design leads with the end users in mind. Smart buildings are not technology-driven buildings, but buildings that are digitally enabled to meet the goals of people using the space. As such, setting out with a clear strategy in mind is crucial, ensuring all deployments and integrations meet the use cases being targeted and provide outcomes that benefit various users, whether that’s tenants, visitors or operational staff.
