The smart makeover: turning buildings into digital powerhouses

What if your building had a digital brain—and a memory too? Tools like the Digital Building Logbook are reshaping how we manage homes, making energy use smarter, maintenance predictive, and data just a click away. But to make it work, tech must meet trust and affordability.

Let's imagine our home as a precious but worn-out dress, fraying at the seams. Now imagine we want to patch it up, not with needle and thread, but with a network of sensors and smart systems ready to make it shine on the most glamorous of nights. This outfit, in the end, won't just sparkle, it will do so efficiently, without wasting energy, like a cascade of sequins shimmering only when needed.

It might sound futuristic, but smart buildings are increasingly seen as essential if we want to cut emissions The building stock, mostly silent and still, is responsible for around 40% of Europe's energy consumption, and over one third of energy-related greenhouse gas emissions. The need to "change the outfit" is urgent, and it's backed by policy: the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD), aims to fully decarbonize Europe's building stock by 2050. A bold goal, that many tools are striving to meet.

One of these is the Digital Building Logbook (DBL), a kind of comprehensive, constantly updated digital folder that collects all the relevant data about a building: ownerships details, Energy Performance Certificates (EPC), technical plans, maintenance records, and more. With a click, anyone managing or living in a building could access everything needed for renovations, audits or even resale.

Countries like Belgium (in Flanders) and Germany are already testing this kind of approach, using renovation roadmaps and digital tools to improve transparency and energy performance "Today everything is designed digitally: plants, buildings, everything is done in 3D. So, it's natural to think about a tool like the Digital Building Logbook that collects and preserves that data," explains Davide Madeddu, project manager at One Team Srl, the company developing the DBL.

But the DBL is only one part of this new, high-tech "dress" for buildings. We still need the sequins to shimmer efficiently. Enter the Digital Twin: a digital avatar of the real building, capable of monitoring its conditions and energy use in real time. When the Digital Twin interacts with the DBL, it creates a living data archive. "The logbook becomes a historical and real-time repository of building data, and it allows you to develop statistics on systems and maintenance, for example predicting failures with artificial intelligence. It's especially through preventative maintenance that we can achieve significant savings on this chapter, even 10 to 20%," says Madeddu.

These tools and more are being integrated and tested by the European BuildON project, which is piloting solutions in five real-world locations across Europe, including residential blocks in Spain and Finland, commercial buildings in Greece and France and a public kindergarten in Poland. "Our main goal is to change the way we manage buildings. Buildings are some of the biggest invisible polluters around, even when we don't notice it", explains Sofía Mulero Palencia, research engineer at CARTIF and coordinator of BuildOn.

The project aims to strengthen the link between buildings, their users, and the environment. One approach: encourage energy use when renewables are available. "It's about finding a sustainable balance between tenants' needs and available resources, for example by selecting the best time to consume, by consuming the most when renewable energy sources are available in order to foster their use" she says.

To do all this, the system needs to "close the loop". That's why the BuildON project is already testing applications that, for instance, allow users to lower the room temperature remotely. But to make this work, there's a big hurdle to overcome: unifying data collected in different ways, translating them into a common language, and feeding them into a smart system capable of understanding and acting. "We integrate all the solutions, all the applications, in what we call the Smart Transformer Toolbox. We are also providing services based on artificial intelligence to monitor, assess, predict, and optimize building performance on top of a Universal Building API (which acts as a bridge between different tools, platforms, and sensors and allows them to communicate with each other even if they use different languages—editor's note). But we also want to close the loop and control the buildings, so that the tenants will have access to the data from his dwelling, for example, and they will be able to activate smart strategies to optimize comfort by controlling the room temperature", says Sofía Mulero Palencia.

Still, it's not all smooth sailing. Not everyone is tech-savvy, and some people simply don't trust smart systems. We have to remember that on the other end is a human being maybe not a digital native who might struggle with a new app.

Affordability and data protection are also key. "Cost, administrative burden, and data concerns must be properly addressed for the tool to be accepted and widely used," says Emmanuelle Causse, Secretary General of the UIPI (International Union of Property Owners). "Then it would be crucial to guarantee some interoperability between the different systems in place in different member states, for international owners."

In short, for this digital transformation to succeed, it must be practical, secure and ideally supported by public infrastructure, not just another bureaucratic burden. Otherwise, the new tool might simply deepen the "public's resentment toward new regulations", says Causse.

Are we far from this future? Experts suggest a public-private rollout could work, similar to Italy's SPID digital ID system that was developed to facilitate the digital access to public administration's services. The DBL could have multiple levels: a free, basic level, and premium features available for a fee. "To assist older users, we could create physical public help desks," Madeddu suggests. "But technology is clearly moving in this direction. We can't go backwards: people will adapt, just as they did with other digital transitions."

No more dusty binders, no more guesswork, just clean, intuitive access to your home's health and history, plus the ability to lower your bills with a few taps on your phone. A smart upgrade, just like buying that glittering sequin dress, ready to wear on a special occasion when, our buildings will no longer be a major source of pollution. A day to celebrate.

Article by Gioia Salvatori with contributions from:

· Davide Madeddu, project manager at One Team Srl

· Emmanuelle Causse, Secretary General of the UIPI

· Sofía Mulero Palencia, research engineer at CARTIF and coordinator of BuildOn

CONTACTS

Project coordinator:

Sofía Mulero Palencia
sofmul@cartif.es

CARTIF

Communication Manager:

Gustavo Jacomelli
Gustavo.jacomelli@icons.it

Fondazione ICONS

Project website: https://buildon-project.eu/
LinkedIn: BuildON
Facebook: BuildON EU project

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