2022 Smart Building of the Year award recipient: PAE Living Building, in Portland, Ore.

Smart Buildings

Register for Smart Connect 2022 and see the first-ever Smart Building of the Year Award winner!

Oct. 18, 2022

The free virtual event on Nov. 16 will also include educational sessions by AEM, ABB Building Solutions, Dormakaba, Panduit, Belden, and TIA, and a future-forward keynote by The Digit Group managing partner Paul Doherty.

Wanda Lau

“Integrating the Ecosystem.” The tagline for Smart Buildings Technology is simple, but the reality is complex. Ask anyone in the building industry why the sector isn’t as intelligent, streamlined, and productized as the auto or tech industries, and you will get everything from an emphatic nod to a sigh or patronizing pat on the back. The multifaceted mechanisms—financial, tangible, and internal—of developing, designing, constructing, and operating the built environment are challenging to replicate across different job sites, cities, teams, and circumstances. One component gone awry and the result can fall short or fail. That makes success stories all the more admirable and invaluable to our SBT readers and the smart building industry.

To celebrate what is possible in the built environment when smart planning, design, construction, operations, and technology work together to foster positive outcomes for an owner, occupants, the community, and the environment, SBT is thrilled to announce the Smart Building of the Year Award.

The inaugural recipient of this program is the PAE Living Building, in Portland, Ore., by ZGF Architects, MEP engineer and technology designers PAE, developer Edlen & Co., and Walsh Construction Co., among several other stakeholders. Realized through a developer-led funding model, the five-story, 58,000-square-foot mixed-use building is designed to last 500 years through its strategic design, which integrates smart systems to monitor its energy and water independence, a seismic-resilient structure, durable and nontoxic materials, and biophilic, nature-inspired design principles. Additionally, the PAE Living Building benefits the surrounding community, contributing renewable energy to a local affordable housing project. "Our hope is to see many more buildings like the PAE Living Building," Marc Brune, PAE principal and mechanical engineer, tells SBT. "We need buildings that are smart about energy, water, materials, and ultimately carbon. Integrated technology stitches it all together and brings it alive."

Want to learn more about the project? Register today to attend our free, virtual conference Smart Connect 2022 on Wed., Nov. 16. PAE's Brune will officially accept the award and present the project at 12–12:30 p.m. EST. Additionally, look for a feature article detailing the project’s execution in SBT’s forthcoming November 2022 issue.

The PAE Living Building was selected from a short list compiled by our editors and reviewed by our esteemed jury of industry experts. The three jurors are: Jeff Carpenter, senior principal and vice president of India operations, at IMEG Corp.; Carrie Goetz, principal and chief technology officer at StrategITcom and vice chair of Women in BICSI; and June Grant, design principal at Blink!Lab Architecture.

At the all-day Smart Connect program, you will also hear from industry experts from AEM, ABB Building Solutions, Dormakaba, Panduit, Belden, and other leading companies and associations. Register today for Smart Connect 2022!

This article has been updated since first publication.

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About the Author

Wanda Lau | Editorial Director

Wanda Lau is the editorial director of Smart Buildings Technology, LEDs Magazine, and Architectural SSL. She is an award-winning editor, writer, and podcaster whose work appears in several publications, including Architectural Lighting and Architect, where she was most recently the executive editor. In 2021, she was named one of Folio: and AdMonsters' Top Women in Media, in the DEI Champions category. Along with working a decade in the architecture, engineering, and construction industry, she holds a B.S. in civil engineering from Michigan State University, an S.M. in building technology from MIT, and an M.A. in journalism from Syracuse University.