New Smart Campus Integration and Testing Hub Will Support Cutting-edge Building Operations and Performance Research
By Lindsey Coulter
While most universities are currently focused on the spring 2025 semester, some educators and researchers at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) are already looking to 2030 — and beyond.
The University is eagerly anticipating completion of the new $6 million Smart Campus Integration and Testing Hub (SCITHub). The 100% digitally enabled research facility is designed to serve as a model of post-2030 smart and sustainable construction and operations, measuring its own building systems (including HVAC, lighting, building envelope, security, communications, etc.) to better understand how to achieve net-zero emissions across the built environment. The structure will offer a variety of space types for advanced research on how humans and buildings interact. It will also support the development of new technologies that will improve building user experience and support smart solutions related to energy, water, transportation, smart living and workplaces of the future.
The modular construction and timber building is designed to achieve net-zero carbon operations and will be research-operational by September 2025.
A New Type of Research Platform
The two-level, 3,200-square-foot SCITHub is modest in size, but every inch of the facility is on the cutting edge of building operations and performance research. Essentially, the structure will serve as both research platform and subject. When the building opens in fall 2025, it will host researchers and educators who are developing, testing and validating new smart technologies that could later be applied across the built environment.
The structure will comprise three different research testbeds dedicated to: operations and data visualization, smart homes and smart offices. The Operations and Data Visualization Centre (ODVC) will serve as the facility’s brain, collecting data on heating, cooling, ventilation, lighting, etc., that will be available for measurement in the building’s Cognitive Digital Twin.
The smart home testbed will help researchers measure data related to energy savings, security, thermal comfort, and predictive maintenance — while the smart offices testbed will include two sets of test cells, offering the ability to compare different equipment and operating scenarios side-by-side in controlled conditions.
Together, these spaces and functions set the SCITHub apart, as there are no other facilities with the diversity of integrated systems that support predictive control strategy testing in a controlled environment.
The project will also feature an outdoor air system with heat recovery, high-performance terminal units, and air-source and ground-source heat pumps, according to project designer WZMH Architects of Toronto, which collaborated with the Toronto office of Quasar for systems and Salas O’Brien for structural design.
A Space for Collaboration
The SCITHub was the brainchild of Jenn McArthur, Ph.D., project leader and associate professor of Architectural Science at TMU, who was awarded funding by the Canada Foundation for Innovation’s infrastructure fund (similar to National Science Foundation Facilities and Infrastructure grants in the U.S.) to develop the facility.
In 2016, McArthur hosted a workshop focusing on the use of big data to improve the built environment. The workshop also explored the implications and possibilities of machine learning and AI as they related to the places where people live and work.
“So, here’s a bunch of people who work in buildings and building modeling. And here’s a bunch of computer scientists working in AI and machine learning. I wondered what would happen if we brought them together and started talking about how we might collaborate, what we could do,” McArthur said.
One of the big conclusions that came out of the workshop was the need for testing, experimentation and the ability to generate large amounts of data to train the next generation of algorithms to detect faulty building systems and equipment — or to predict system failures before they happened.
Thus, the SCITHub project has engaged key industry partners such as Schneider Electric, Cisco, Mitsubishi Electric, Armstrong, Rogers Communications and FuseForward, among others. Another of McArthur’s goals is to continue creating these partnerships with industry leaders who can benefit from the SCITHUB-based research and innovation, as engaging with local businesses will enhance the research outcomes and support community growth.
Innovative Teaching and Research
McArthur first envisioned the facility for collaborative research. However, it will also be valuable for teaching and learning. For example, students in McArthur’s Project Management in the Built Environment course will study the building’s construction process, collecting timelapse video and other key data for future learning purposes.
“We’re incorporating collaborative activities that allow students to engage with both research and practical applications,” McArthur said. “We want them to not only understand concepts but to apply them in real-world situations.”
SCITHub also provides a venue where graduate students can develop and test next-generation strategies to improve building performance and decrease greenhouse gas emissions, according to the University.
“TMU operates various entrepreneurship incubators, so if somebody comes up with a smart home device that they want to test, they can come in, install it and do a test and actually see how it’s working in a real situation,” McArthur said. “Say we have students who want to do a thesis project on how different amounts of glare affect learning. They can use some of our test cells and change the shading on the windows — because they’re electrochromic glass — or [they can explore] different ways to try and optimize the built environment.”
What’s Inside
A core set of research guided the original SCITHub design, but McArthur and fellow academics and researchers tried to keep the facility as flexible as possible to support as much multidisciplinary research as possible.
“We’ve designed it deliberately so we have flexibility to test unusual situations and understand how we can recover from them,” McArthur said. “We want to get a sense of how we can make these [spaces] as efficient as possible since we’re trying to get away from natural gas and a lot of central plants.”
At the L-shaped building’s ground level, students and researchers will enter a standard reception area before moving into the OVDC and the smart home testbed, designed in the style of a standard affordable living unit. The studio apartment-style space includes a mechanical room and two washrooms, which gives researchers the opportunity to test a variety of smart home technologies, including water-leak detection systems.
A digital backbone ties together all of the digital equipment and sensors, which are connected to a smart command and control center, allowing researchers to integrate a magnitude of building-systems information, according to the University. The first level also includes a mechanical room that services the building’s three different HVAC systems and ties into a GeoExchange (water source heat pump) system allowing for high performance net-zero carbon operation.
The second level includes an open floor plan and partition office spaces and will also be home to the Schneider Electric living lab, comprising a visualization suite, a workshop to develop test and validate Power of Ethernet (PoE) Technologies, and four test cells to compare these different technologies and controls in equivalent conditions. The building will also incorporate an integrated structural panel ceiling that allows for plug-and-play capabilities with new devices.
While based at TMU, the SCITHub will serve a joint research partnership between eight Canadian universities, with research shared through Data Commons.
“I feel like I’ve won the academic lottery in terms of being able to build a bespoke building like this and I just want to share the wealth,” McArthur added. “It’s wonderful.”
This feature originally ran in the November/December digital edition of School Construction News.