SmartLivingNEXT: New levels for the digital residential building

Guest article by Michael Schidlack, FE-ZVEI

A three-level model makes visible where local added value is created, how economic benefits are realized and how buildings ultimately have an infrastructural impact. This is precisely where the “next level” comes in: in the connecting architecture between building intelligence, digital operation and cross-sector networking. Digital residential buildings are often described in terms of individual use cases: intelligent heating control, energy monitoring, predictive maintenance or AI-supported analyses. What is often missing is a structural classification: at which level does which added value arise? And how are these levels interoperably connected?
As part of SmartLivingNEXT, we think in terms of a three-level model. It distinguishes between local building intelligence, operational value creation and systemic aggregation and shows how these levels can be architecturally connected through a federated data space. SmartLivingNEXT thus stands not only for the project name, but also for the aspiration to shape the next development stage of digital networking.

The focus is not on the individual use case, but on the connecting structure between the levels – the actual next level.

Professor Dr. Thomas Hess, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) Munich

Level 1: The intelligent building

The first level is the individual building. This is where the data is generated: sensors record temperatures, energy consumption or system statuses, automation systems regulate operation and efficiency. This local intelligence forms the basis of all digitalization in residential buildings. It ensures transparency, efficiency and operational reliability. At the same time, it remains structurally limited to the individual property. Traditional building automation ends at the building boundary; data is available but not systemically networked.

Local intelligence is a prerequisite, but not yet an infrastructure.

Dr. Hilko Hoffmann, German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI)

Level 2: Digital operation

The second level extends the view from individual buildings to holdings and portfolios. Data from several properties is merged and integrated into operational and strategic control processes. This opens up new opportunities for housing companies, care and healthcare providers, trades and maintenance companies and other service providers: optimized maintenance strategies, transparent cost structures, efficiency analyses and, in the future, automated management and billing processes or resident services

Data becomes a strategic control instrument here. The prerequisite for this is interoperability. The federated data space creates the structural basis for making data usable in a standardized, secure and controlled manner, across company and system boundaries.

Level 3: Buildings as part of the infrastructure

At the third level, buildings are understood as part of larger contexts: in the neighborhood, in the municipality or in cross-sector infrastructures. Data can be aggregated across buildings and used for energy planning, grid stability or integrated supply concepts, for example. Buildings thus become active components of a digital and energy infrastructure.

This perspective is becoming increasingly important in the context of the energy transition, resilience and European data sovereignty. This is the core of SmartLivingNEXT: the transition from smart individual objects to a networked, sovereign data ecosystem.

The data room is not an additional application. It is the connecting architecture between the individual levels.

Thomas Feld, Materna

The data room as a connecting structure

The three-level model illustrates the role of the data space within SmartLivingNEXT. Data is created at level 1, at level 2 it is made economically usable and creates added value for individuals and companies, and at level 3 it has an infrastructural effect that benefits everyone – individuals, companies and the state. Only the structured connection of these levels creates a scalable, interoperable and sovereign data ecosystem for residential buildings, and this is precisely the “next level” of SmartLivingNEXT.