Research project Optimal Operation of Smart Buildings through Collaboration: Legal, Economic, and Organizational Tool

Research project that investigates the link between new technologies and optimal operation of buildings. The aim is to create better conditions for the optimal operation of smart buildings.

Based on Nobel laureates Bengt Holmström's (MIT) and Paul Milgrom's (Stanford) theories on incentive structures in optimal contracts, we undertake to investigate how contracts ought to be designed to support the use of cutting-edge technology to reduce the climate impact of buildings.

There are strong ecological, social and economic arguments for smarter buildings. However, new technology that has been tested and verified in testbeds does not reach its full potential once installed. It is theoretically possible to create, share, use, and store valuable information early in the construction process – for example through digital twins – which is useful in design, production, operation and maintenance. In practice, however, problems arise because the frameworks and institutional structures of the various disciplines and phases are not adapted for integrated collaboration. As a result, incentives for individual actors to contribute fully to a well-functioning whole, remain vague.