Designing for building control systems.

Have you ever wondered what an interface looks like for a building control system or what I learned is called a Building Management System (BMS) in real life? I always had the illusion of what you see in the movies and TV shows like Iron man with these cool looking 3D rendered interactive layouts that they can zoom in on and control everything in real-time, well I found out that was not the case which was truly disappointing (this made me sad but also excited at the prospect of making them myself).

They not only were still using paint but also in 8-bit colour, plus no zoom functions and floorplans were paginated and tables and more tables of data ( oh how my designers’ soul was hurting). These control systems were managing a variety of buildings and facilities for over 25 years.

So, as we embarked on a major software upgrade to all systems, it was decided that it was necessary to design and development a new Framework and User Interface trying to bring these systems in line with current technology standards.

This software is required to be easy to use, flexible, navigable, and most importantly customisable for every site ranging from hospitals, medical research facilities, commercial buildings, shopping centres, campuses, and airports. The system can control and monitor large amounts of data and equipment, making the task extremely complex. It also must display a range of graphics such as floor plans, live lighting and air conditioning, site maps, weather feeds and Reports/ Analytics to name a few.

I not only had the pleasure to design the master control systems that sits in the back rooms (run by the building admin team) but the touch screens that are used within the affected room(s) by the people who are in the space. Such as office controls and more complex airlocks and pressure rooms ( very scary outcomes can be had with these).

Bringing this new framework to life was challenging as you need to work within truly complex technical constraints, but also people who have been using this software for over 25 years. I do believe we were able to bring great improvements to the system overall with interactive floorplans and contextual data displays as well as improved navigational structures and of course no more 8-bit colour, and maybe one day those cool 3D UI’s from iron man.