ENGINEER OF THE YEAR | TOM HOPTON THE NEW NORM MUST BE SMARTER CIBSE Engineer of the Year Tom Hopton spent 2020 looking at how data could help building owners respond to the upheaval caused by Covid-19. He tells Alex Smith how analytics is boosting the performance of buildings while responding to the needs of occupants W hen Buro Happold associate Tom Hopton was presented with the 2020 Engineer of the Year Award last February, it was just more than a month before the UK entered its first lockdown in the face of rising Covid-19 infection rates. For many engineers the economic shutdown meant work was put on hold, but this wasnt the case for Hopton. As leader of Buro Happolds global smart buildings group, he was quick to deploy technology in response to the disruption caused by Covid-19. History shows us that, in difficult times, we have always looked to technology to find answers, and the Covid-19 pandemic is no different, says Hopton. For all its disruption, we should reflect on the pandemic as an opportunity for positive change. Trends around agile working, healthy buildings and operational efficiency have accelerated during the pandemic, and we must build on this momentum as we face the global challenges of economic recession and climate emergency. Hopton believes smart technology can help create agile, productive and enriching environments that are necessary to tempt people back into buildings after the virus recedes. When people go back to work, they need to feel safe, but they should be in an environment where they can thrive, he says. The vast amount of data generated by buildings should be optimising building performance in areas other than energy efficiency such 20 January 2021 www.cibsejournal.com CIBSE Jan21 pp20-21 Tom Hopton 2.indd 20 as health, wellbeing and productivity, and maintenance. Post-Covid, Hopton predicts that staff will return to the workplace, but not five days a week. People recognise the need for an office, but they are no longer factories of production, he says. Workplaces need to offer flexibility, with more facilities and concierge services. Rather than predominately being a place to produce they become a destination for collaboration. DATA-ENABLED DIAGNOSTICS Unlocking a buildings potential can be inexpensive if you can use existing data to reveal building issues, says Hopton. One common controls issue that can be quickly rectied is changing HVAC time schedules and control set points and programming, so that they correspond better to demand. We often see time schedules that have not been optimised, says Hopton. By looking at lighting PIR sensors, we can see when buildings are occupied and, often, it reveals HVAC running when no-one is there. In one case, the building occupier was able to save 18,850 a year by changing the schedules, without affecting occupant comfort. In another building, Buro Happold found that CO2 levels which are an indicator of outside air levels were varying on every oor of a high-rise ofce. It suspected this was caused by the stack affect, resulting in energy loss through inltration. The hypothesis was proven after Buro Happold studied data from differential pressure sensors in vertical riser ducts, and, after consulting the FM team, found that a motorised damper had not been installed . Fixing the issue saved 4,300/yr. 18/12/2020 17:03