‘Smart Buildings’ Give Tenants the Latest in High-Tech Systems

The newest status address in offices is at a “smart building,” with talking elevators, heat and motion sensors, automated lighting systems and other high-tech features.

Smart buildings have created a new market for shared-tenant services that is expected to generate as much as $10 billion a year in revenues by 1994.

Building-control companies that once concentrated on selling air conditioners or elevators now call themselves systems integrators.

The leading systems integrators are Honeywell Inc., Johnson Controls Inc., Mark Controls and United Technologies Corp., as well as several telecommunications companies.

Their services consist of providing common computer and telecommunications equipment to customers. The concept represents a fundamental change in the way buildings are marketed, when services offered are often as much of a selling point as the space. A building’s “intelligence” is measured by its computers, sophisticated wiring in the walls and digital telephone switching systems.

The 1-year-old CityPlace, a 38-story tower in Hartford, Conn., is one of the most advanced examples of the dozen or so smart buildings in the United States and is the headquarters of United Technologies’ Building Systems Co. subsidiary, formed in 1981 as the first of the building systems integrators. Its elevators have a smooth voice that announces floors. There are no light switches. Instead, an infrared scanner that senses body heat and motion turns lights on as soon as someone enters a room and turns them off 12 minutes after the last occupant leaves. Temperature sensors sensitive to a change as small as one-tenth of a degree adjust the temperature and humidity.