Why Designing Technology Into New Student Housing Is Key To Building Performance

The student housing sector is growing steadily in the U.S., with the number of beds available set to increase from 8.5 million in 2020 to 9.2 million by 2031. This boom in new student housing is an opportunity to design technology solutions for property specifications to provide essential data, said Ben Roberts, co-founder and director of technology company Utopi.  

“Costs of running student housing remain high, and understanding building performance is critical,” he said. “At the moment, most buildings across the U.S. are underserved by technology, and access to data is fairly minimal. But if technology is considered in the design phase, it can be very cost-effective to put the right infrastructure in place.”

Ahead of the Philadelphia Student Housing and Higher Ed Development Summit, where Roberts will be speaking on a panel on Oct. 16, Bisnow spoke to him about the technology that developers can put in place today.

Bisnow: How can technology be incorporated into student housing early in the design process?

Roberts: When you’re constructing a new building, you have the opportunity to look at how to deploy systems in a way that will give you access to the most information possible. In turn, this allows you to be as operationally efficient as possible. 

A lot of gaps in datasets exist because when a building is constructed and a management system specified, it creates siloed data that is difficult to access. A property manager needs to be able to use data to engage with residents and help them understand their impact. 

The design phase is a great opportunity to think about the digital infrastructure you need and the specification the building needs to allow this. It’s about creating holistic operational data, within which energy plays an important part.

Bisnow: How well are property owners gathering and using the data they need to improve environmental, social and governance aspects?

Roberts: We think there’s a lot of work to do, both in terms of data collection and understanding why it’s important to understand building performance. 

Part of the problem is ESG is quite a polarizing topic that has been heavily politicized. If we park the term ESG and instead refer to building performance data, this can be a better description of what information can be used for. 

All property managers need access to information to understand factors such as how much energy is being consumed, how tenants are living, and what technology is available to control temperatures and consumption and improve people’s living experience. There’s a big push for centralization, but without access to data, it’s very difficult to pursue a strategy to get there. 

Bisnow: How does a centralization strategy involve technology?

Roberts: Across all living sectors, there’s a big push to use technology in place of manual tasks. Property owners are looking to deploy technology to allow an asset manager in a centralized location to manage all aspects of a property. That includes anything from automated remote access for viewing a property or using a smart lock to handling maintenance issues. 

It’s all about reducing costs and driving operational efficiency. The centralization of operations is moving the industry toward artificial intelligence, as well as more intelligent, automated decision-making. It brings efficiency to fund and asset managers. 

Utopi fits in because we can allow a property manager to control aspects of a building’s operations remotely. This reduces costs, as you need fewer people on-site, and creates better visibility into how a portfolio is performing, whether that be finding overheated spaces, overuse of energy or if installed heaters are malfunctioning — really anything.

One thing worth mentioning is that technology will reduce the size of on-site teams, which has good and bad aspects. Property owners will be able to invest in multiskilled people who are able to carry out a wider range of roles on-site as more manual tasks are taken away.

Bisnow: What specific aspects of building design need to change to allow for the installation of technology?

Roberts: Traditionally, if you’re looking to install a building management system, you might wire this into the HVAC system, using sensors to monitor air quality or heating. This is expensive and requires a lot of cabling. 

Instead, we use an Internet of Things solution called LoRaWAN. This wireless infrastructure allows a user to build on layers of technology, including metering and energy control solutions, leak detection and humidity monitoring. All the digital technologies you want to gather data from can sit on one network.

If a property owner gets this right from the beginning, this is much more cost-effective to install during the construction and development phase. It also means you can expand technologies retrospectively as new solutions emerge without having to carry out major infrastructure work.

Bisnow: Where should a customer start in terms of knowing what infrastructure to install?

Roberts: We share a digital infrastructure blueprint with every customer we onboard, which shows how we believe they should design their building from the ground up in order to access data in one place. It’s not siloed. It allows operational teams access and it’s cost-effective. 

This strategy was born from retrofitting our system in existing buildings, as it’s much easier to implement. 

Bisnow: Has adoption of wireless technology increased?

Roberts: Most of our clients now specify the use of our system in their new buildings and take a technology approach to construction. One factor slowing adoption down is that mechanical and engineering consultants generally tend to stick to what they know. When we put a digital infrastructure specification into a company’s design for a building, there can be resistance. 

We need to bring traditional M&E consultants up to speed about what is possible now in terms of the building services design of buildings. Things are starting to progress towards a wireless environment, but more traction is needed.

Bisnow: What is the best way to increase the pace of change?

Roberts: It needs to be led by the operators of the completed buildings. There needs to be more cohesive thinking around buildings being designed for when they’re operational, with efficiency in mind. 

At the moment, there’s a disconnect between design, development and operations. Value engineering can be a significant issue, as what seems like a small element in the design might not be delivered during construction.

This could be something as simple as movement sensors in communal spaces to control lights. This is cheap technology and can easily be swapped out of the design during construction, but when the building is operating and lights don’t turn off when a room is empty because there’s no sensor, the cost really adds up. 

Bisnow: How is Utopi’s expansion in the U.S. going?

Roberts: It’s early days for us in the U.S. We currently have one operational building and are currently adapting our model to how rent models differ in the U.S. compared to Europe, such as who pays the bill in student houses. 

We’ve already found some interesting information on how each tenant is using air conditioning. We will also use our gamification tool to incentivize tenants to use less energy and make sure they turn their air conditioning off when they leave a room, not to open windows and so on.

This is Utopi’s value proposition — it’s not just about controlling energy, but seeing outliers in energy use and doing something about it. 

Click here for more information about Bisnow’s Philadelphia Student Housing and Higher Ed Development Summit on Oct. 16.

This article was produced in collaboration between Utopi and Studio B. Bisnow news staff was not involved in the production of this content.

Studio B is Bisnow’s in-house content and design studio. To learn more about how Studio B can help your team, reach out to studio@bisnow.com.