What started out as a consulting assignment ended with the installation of a new intelligent building platform, incubated by a leading engineering design firm, into two high-rise office buildings in Chicago.
The IoT-enabled platform, which unites a building’s various workflows, is from Cohesion, a company launched in August 2018 after being spun out from Environmental Systems Design (ESD), which has been at the forefront of designing intelligent buildings. The two buildings in which Cohesion’s app is now live are owned by The John Buck Company, a Chicago-based real estate services developer.
John Buck had initially hired ESD to upgrade the technology in different buildings within the developer’s portfolio. After John Buck asked about possible vendors, ESD decided that it would develop the app itself, according to Laura Hagan, Cohesion’s director of marketing.
She explains that the two buildings—the 35-story, 807,000-sf 151 North Franklin, which opened in 2018; and the 48-story 1.12-milliion-sf 155 Wacker Drive, which opened in 2009—are rigged with I-nodes, little black boxes that, she says, act like routers that connect different systems. The I-nodes transmit data to Microsoft’s Azure Cloud, which in turn supports the app.
One of Cohesion’s software partners is Iotium, whose product integrates with and connects systems already in the building.
Building occupants can use Cohesion's app to gain more direct access to a building's amenities. Image: Cohesion
Cohesion’s software provides building occupants with comprehensive and direct access to their building’s amenities, information, and documents. It also provides a single interface for occupants to take actions, such as reserving parking spots and bike storage, or viewing the availability of equipment in the building’s fitness center.
Select tenant companies have chosen to launch mobile credentials and/or building visitor management functionalities. So, for example, if a tenant invites a guest to a meeting in the wired building, Cohesion would streamline the process by setting up the appointment, alerting security and relevant parties about the guest, and would send an email to the company upon the visitor’s arrival.
All 13 tenant companies at 151 North Franklin and the 40 tenant companies at 155 Wacker are using the app. When a new tenant comes into the buildings, they are onboarded onto the app.
“The real estate industry is experiencing significant technological disruption, and our solution benefits all stakeholders across the operational lifecycle—from owners to tenants,” says Thru Shivakumar, Cohesion’s CEO. “By connecting all the systems and human interactions in a building, we can provide the most powerful insights to deliver efficient and sustainable building operations,”
Cohesion charges the building’s management a setup fee and a monthly service fee. “It’s up to them whether they want to pass along those costs to the tenants,” says Hagan.
The new company is currently in fundraising mode, and is expected to close its latest financing round in June, at which point it plans to hire 35 employees over the following 12 months. (Cohesion currently operates with a 24-person team located in Chicago and Banaglore, India.) Hagan says that, including John Buck, Cohesion has commitments from three developers across eight buildings.
It also has an innovation pipeline to develop new uses for its app, possibly including building performance analytics.
Related Stories
| Aug 11, 2010
International Living Building Institute established to advance 'living buildings'
The idea of a Living Building, a high-performance building that produces its own power and cleans and reuses all of its water, is gaining momentum around the world. In an effort to oversee the global development of Living Buildings, the International Living Building Institute (ILBI) has been established.
| Aug 11, 2010
ASHRAE research targets tying together BIM and energy efficiency
Ensuring that a common language of “energy efficiency” is spoken by both building information modeling software used by architects and energy analysis and simulation software used by engineers is the goal of new research funded by ASHRAE.
| Aug 11, 2010
Report: Building codes and regulations impede progress toward uber-green buildings
The enthusiasm for super green Living Buildings continues unabated, but a key stumbling block to the growth of this highest level of green building performance is an existing set of codes and regulations. A new report by the Cascadia Region Green Building Council entitled "Code, Regulatory and Systemic Barriers Affecting Living Building Projects" presents a case for fundamental reassessment of building codes.
| Aug 11, 2010
Portland Cement Association offers blast resistant design guide for reinforced concrete structures
Developed for designers and engineers, "Blast Resistant Design Guide for Reinforced Concrete Structures" provides a practical treatment of the design of cast-in-place reinforced concrete structures to resist the effects of blast loads. It explains the principles of blast-resistant design, and how to determine the kind and degree of resistance a structure needs as well as how to specify the required materials and details.
| Aug 11, 2010
Rice concrete can cut greenhouse emissions
Rajan Vempati of ChK Group, Inc. in Plano, Texas, and a team of researchers found a way to make nearly carbon-free rice husk ash for concrete, which can lead to a boom in green construction.
| Aug 11, 2010
NYLO Hotel in Dallas will run on renewable energy
When NYLO Dallas/Las Colinas opens in late July 2009, it will run on 100 percent renewable energy. The loft-style boutique hotel brand has signed an agreement with TXU Energy to become the supplier’s first hotel customer in the Dallas/Fort Worth area to purchase 100 percent Renewable Energy Certificate-based electricity.
