Smart Building and Campus Framework: A Determination of Smart Campus Parameters to Predict Potential Smartness of University Campuses

Advanced technology has permeated the architectural field along with adjustments in the wants and needs of the occupant, environmental responsibility, and positive energy-related responses. These continuing developments in technology have eliminated certain barriers among many fields and combined some areas of the building sector and educational technologies on university campuses. Therefore, this thesis focuses on smart building and campus framework to examine current knowledge and a wide-spread perspective with a holistic and overarching approach. A notable point in recent research is the emerging need for active participation of real occupants in the evaluation lifecycle of buildings that go from conventional to smart. The actual understanding of the behaviours, preferences, and approaches of the occupants to technological developments is necessary to prepare for the changes. Consequently, post-occupation evaluations (POEs) have been carefully conducted to collect empirical data from the occupants of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. The results were incorporated into several well-representing university occupant data sets and highlighted key issues such as perception, comfort, and environmental factors on campuses. It can be specified that the fundamental expectations of campus occupants are effective heating, ventilation, air conditioning (HVAC); lighting; and wayfinding systems together with the use of educational technologies, to form a productive teaching and learning environment. In addition, they place particular emphasis on topics such as water, waste, energy, and sustainability. Although a certain consensus is established on the level of smartness of buildings, there are no standard methodologies or parameters listed that specify smart campuses. It is evident that determining factors must be issued and a new perspective is required in light of the latest developments to determine the potential smartness of university campuses. Therefore, the Smart Availability Scale (SAS) has been developed using newly created parameters and adapting the multi-criteria decision technique. The SAS parameters and categories fundamentally originate from literature reviews and POEs data while following sequential order to reach the conclusion. Since heuristic research meets several criteria with reasonable calculation effort, this thesis has utilized this methodology and contributed to the current state of knowledge with theory and methodology. Conventional university buildings and campuses are equipped with architectural elements that are capable of acquiring smartness to enhance the teaching and learning experience. Within the evaluation period, this thesis can provide instructive and determinative guidance to stakeholders on the affiliated campus.