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Introduction
The concept of “smart” building has risen up in the past few decades. Awareness of the importance of developing smart buildings is increasing. Higher competitive pressures force owners and developers to design and construct buildings that can be considered smart in terms of energy efficiency, occupant comfort, development and operating costs. Furthermore, the adaptation to climate change is emerging as one of the main requirements for buildings in satisfying environmental performance (Love and Bullen, 2009), thereby promoting “smart” solutions. Also, the concept of smart is an important part of the sustainability movement. Indeed, a green building incorporates building plans, the production, transportation and use of sustainable materials, minimum waste and minimum maintenance (Tsai et al., 2014). The concept of smart is receiving a great amount of attention worldwide not only in relation of the sustainability issue but also because it makes use of interconnected technologies and because it generates a high level of comfort for the occupants (GhaffarianHoseini et al., 2013). Owners and developers seek to achieve and document high-performance buildings to gain competitive advantage, designers are promoting their services based on the performance of their projects, and tenants and occupants are interested in their buildings’ performance (Jarvis, 2009).
Smart buildings involve the usage of design solutions, technology and processes to develop facilities that are comfortable and safe for their occupants while at the same time economical for their owners (Katz and Skopek, 2009). The adjective “intelligent” has been often used instead of “smart” (Wong and Li, 2009). Smart buildings create an environment that maximizes the efficiency of building services, ensuring effective resource management with minimum life-cycle costs (Perumal et al., 2010). This objective is reached because these buildings “decide” the most efficient way to provide with an appropriate environment for its occupants (Loveday et al., 1997). In particular, the deployment of information and communications technology solutions for home automation, heating and cooling and facility management allows for more productive and cost-effective ownership (So et al., 1999), such as through user-comfort solutions and the optimization of energy consumption (Nguyen and Aiello, 2013). The goal is to achieve the optimal combination of comfort and energy consumption (Wang et al., 2012a, 2012b), and thus improve the performance of the building....