At the University of Applied Science Utrecht we have been working on optimising the sustainable use of space for a long time. There are various reasons for this, such as the high costs per square meter, the shortage of space at peak times and the vacancy rate at off-peak moments. There are complaints from the education departments that they cannot book rooms when they need it, while occupancy figures show that on average there should be a lot of rooms available. All this requires a major research. Where we are still in the phase of researching what data we have available and how we can unlock and connect that data.
During the preparations for this research, however, it was also discussed that heating, cooling and ventilating all those rooms costs a lot of money. If these rooms are used intensively, that is fine, but if they are often empty, this is not sustainable and therefore undesirable. The department responsible for heating, cooling and ventilation also has a lot of data regarding the use of the rooms, because there are various sensors in the buildings that constantly take measurements. This data is currently used to a limited extent and nothing is yet being done with the combination of the various data from both the building management systems and the education planning systems. The question is what could we do with the combination of all that data?
This practice-oriented research will focus on optimising sustainable use of space within the University by providing insight into the actual occupancy of scheduled teaching spaces using the data from the sensors of the building management system.
