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Green Intelligent Building for Malaysia – Integration of Intelligent Building System In Green Building Design Towards Energy Sustainable Buildings

Part 2 Dissertation 2010
Choon Lim Lai
University of Malaya | Malaysia
The entry into the 21st century was not a pleasant experience for mankind as the planet inhabited by them plummets into the alarming issue of dwindling natural resources and global climate change. Actually it was not until the late 1990s that this issue be brought into a global scale. Prior to these situations in the 1980s, building designers have been addressing the issue of power-hungry buildings with building automation due to over-specified appliances. Back then, engineers only rely on basic rule-of-thumb calculations to specify building service equipments with over-rated safety and comfort factors with little consideration on energy efficiency.

Now in the 21st century, sustainable built environment was the prime focus in the building industry by implying ingenious and practical passive building design in construction to address the dwindling global resource and climate change. Building automation had also been upgraded into a more intuitive intelligent approach with the innovation of computer to achieve optimal energy efficiency in the operation of building services. At some point, there is the integration between sustainable passive building designs with intelligent building systems (IBS).

In Malaysia, sustainable buildings had made a mark on Malaysia’s building industry with the recent introduction of Green Building Index (GBI) as a recognised sustainable building rating tool. However, the local building industry still lack emphasis on the development of IBS, which could have huge potentials in complementing with the current trend of green sustainable building design and achieve even more energy efficiency.

This study looks into the issue of initiating IBS technology in Malaysia, its possibility and feasibility of integrating with the local context of sustainable green passive building design in hopes that IBS may solve the issues of sustainability in the local built environment, and to develop in a competitive pace compared to other developed countries.

Simulation tools and literature reviews will be used to determine the feasibility factor and the compatibility of IBS integration into green buildings. Issues concerning the inhibiting factors regarding the technology uptake of IBS either in the local research and development, or the preamble foreign technology inception will also be regarded.

Lai Choon Lim

Choon Lim Lai


Energy Conservation in Buildings is a vital part of teaching and practice of Architecture in the Department. Malaysia has been a pioneer in the field with the acclaimed works of Architects Dr. Ken Yeang and Dr. Hijjas Kasturi amongst others. This has culminated with two major demonstration buildings built in Kuala Lumpur over the last 5 years.

Mr. Lai’s thesis fits-in nicely into this scenario, wherein Malaysia is propagating the Concept of Green Building Index (GBI) for a Sustainable Built Environment
This study looks into the issue of initiating Intelligent Building System (IBS) technology in Malaysia. The feasibility of integrating with the local context of sustainable green passive building design is fully explored. The study hopes that IBS may solve the issue of sustainability in the local built environment and develop in a competitive pace compared to other developed countries.

Simulation tools were used to determine the feasibility factors and the compatibility of IBS integration into green buildings in Malaysia. Issues concerning the inhibiting factors regarding the technology uptake of IBS either in the local research and development, or the preamble foreign technology inception were also studied.

The dissertation has admirably met its goals and would be an asset to researchers working in this field in Malaysia.

Assoc. Prof. S P Rao

Tutor(s)
S.P. Rao
2010
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