Integration of Nature and Technology for Smart Cities

This book is a resumption of the work Integrated M/E Design: Building Systems Engineering published by Anil Ahuja in 1997. Together with an international group of authors from the engineering, urban planning, and architecture fields, Mr. Ahuja discussed new trends and paradigms in the smart buildings and smart city sectors and extended the topic of the previous publication from the building to the entire city. A smart, sustainable building is not just about the building itself. There are things happening in the inside of the building and on the outside. A smart building connects the inside with the outside, provides efficiencies on both sides, synchronizes the outside infrastructure with its inside systems, and integrates nature and its occupants in its design. A smart building doesn’t just provide technology solutions. It is about constant exchange between the inside and the outside of the building, the contribution of the building to the quality of the entire neighborhood and the rest of the city, how the smart building can connect people in a sharing community, and how technology can be the key to make it happen.