Smart, integrated solutions to the challenges of Living Tomorrow

ABB has joined forces with Belgian technology research and innovation organization Living Tomorrow to provide energy-saving solutions for a new flagship low-carbon Innovation Campus in Brussels, offering a tantalizing glimpse inside the safe, sustainable living and working spaces of the future.

US computer scientist Alan Kay famously said: “The best way to predict the future, is to invent it.” For more than 30 years, the international innovation platform Living Tomorrow has been striving to do just that, beginning back in 1991 with its very first 'House of the Future' in the Belgian capital of Brussels.

The amalgamation of 160 partners and an investment of €6m, the conceptual building in Vilvoorde, which has since been visited by 450,000 people¹, introduced the world to innovations such as home automation, barcode scanners, solar panels and web services. The architecture developed entirely in 3D, used innovative materials such as aerated concrete, laminate cladding and a cavity-free zinc roof. A quarter of a century on from that landmark piece of architecture – and with the climate emergency dominating the global agenda – Living Tomorrow is still working to provide answers to the following questions: what will the sustainable living spaces of the future look like? And how can innovation and collaboration today help write the story of tomorrow when it comes to the urban built environment?

A low-carbon center of excellence

Completed in September 2023, the Innovation Campus is the very definition of ‘multi-functional’, serving as an innovation hub, a living lab and a versatile event location, situated amid lush green scenery but still close to the Brussels ring road, just ten kilometers from the center of Brussels.

The campus not only offers eight state-of-the-art meeting rooms, but also a comfortable hotel with 92 hotel rooms, an auditorium, two restaurants and a digital experience center.

As a customer-facing industry, hospitality is leading the way when it comes to eco-awareness and technology. Modern travelers want sustainability, cost-effectiveness, and comfort when they stay at a hotel. This is often enabled by digital and automation solutions that give guests control over their environment at the touch of a button, and operators visibility of energy use and emissions².

As a recognized leader in the provision of smart technologies that are designed to drive the energy efficiency of building facilities, it is fitting that ABB is ranked as a AAA partner for Living Tomorrow, owing to its expertise and contribution to this development. Engineering solutions for a new low-carbon structure that hosts the organization’s Innovation Campus, the site will be a flagship project that integrates a range of ABB’s product portfolio under one roof.

Yin Oei, CEO of Living Tomorrow, said, “The Living Tomorrow ecosystem has the power to create, innovate and transform to make a difference for our future. A partner like ABB, who is collaborating with a number of other partners on a Proof of Concept with conversational A.I. to develop new facilities management functionalities, is of great value to us.”

ABB Partner event at the Living Tomorrow's Campus
ABB Energy Transition event at the Living Tomorrow's Campus
ABB Energy Transition event at the Living Tomorrow's Campus
voco™ Brussels City North hotel, part of the campus
Living Tomorrow's Digital Experience Center
Living Tomorrow's meeting room
Living Tomorrow's Digital Experience Center

Innovating smart living with ABB's integrated solutions

In the spirit of collaboration and innovation that is Living Tomorrow’s trademark, the new building features both KNX and BACnet building automation solutions – the ABB i-bus® KNX and ABB Cylon® HVAC Building Automation – working in harmony as part of a holistic technology solution. ABB i-bus® KNX- connects everything from lighting, shading and HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) to security and energy management. All devices communicate with one another, utilizing the worldwide open standard protocol for the control of intelligent buildings^3,4.

Highlights of the KNX system in Living Tomorrow’s Innovation Campus, include presence sensors and high-quality, user-friendly Tenton® sensors which enable room temperature, CO₂/humidity and HVAC, shading and lighting to be controlled from a single device.

ABB Cylon® HVAC Building Automation is a flexible and scalable system that comprises energy management solutions aimed at system integrators, facility managers, and building owners. It provides an optimized environment in commercial and industrial infrastructure that is safe, smart and sustainable⁵.

In the new multi-purpose building in Brussels, the Cylon system includes ABB’s FBXi, CBXi and FLX programmable controllers for efficient and accurate control and monitoring of smart building automation solutions, within an open protocol environment.

Additionally, ABB's energy distribution portfolio ensures a safe electrical installation that is connected to the Building Management System (BMS).

One of the main project priorities was to ensure maximum energy efficiency and enable monitoring of the main utilities within the building centrally. As such, ABB included the InSite energy management system with the SCU100 control unit together with its range of Energy meters and M4M network analyzers.

Emergency lighting comes from ABB’s Movion series, while security of supply is provided by two ABB uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems.

“The increasing complexity of buildings today calls for an open, interoperable and integrated solution to fit the specific needs of a project and the customer. The main considerations of this brief were to elevate automated comfort and convenience, and prioritize ease of use for the customer, while at the same time ensuring the building operators have extensive control and insight into the energy consumption of the site,” said Emile Vekemans, Solution Architect at ABB's Smart Buildings Division.

ABB enables this ideal setup by offering open protocol portfolios comprising products that operate on international standardized protocols with well-mapped addresses. The advantage of having the protocol addresses publicly available is that anyone can easily integrate these products into comprehensive solutions for the end customer, without being limited to a single choice. This facilitates the convergence of multiple systems in a Building Management System (BMS), offering the end user a unified platform to manage, observe, and control their building.

A vision of the future

What all this technology adds up to is a multifunctional, state-of-the-art building that does justice to Living Tomorrow’s overarching vision of accelerating innovations that contribute to a sustainable future⁶, taking the conversation around the future of our built environment forward.