Here’s a list of some of the world’s most technologically advanced buildings that push the envelope when it comes to responsiveness, well-being, sustainability and construction costs.

The Top 10 Technologically Advanced Buildings:

#1 The Edge by PLP Architecture

Described as the world’s greenest, most intelligent building, Deloitte’s new Amsterdam head office, the Edge, has received the highest sustainability score ever awarded by the British rating agency BREEAM. The building, designed by PLP Architecture, uses technology to achieve an unprecedented level of resource efficiency, but also create a collaborative work environment in tune with its users. Its LED panels pack about 28,000 sensors that track motion, light, temperature and humidity, creating a unique artificial neural network.

Surprisingly, the building comprises only 1,000 desks. The concept of hot desking–using desks only when they’re needed– increases occupancy efficiency and boosts productivity. The rest of the spaces designated for work are informal meeting spaces and lounge areas.

A smartphone app, developed with Deloitte, is connected to the building which directs you to a free parking spot, finds you a free desk and caters to your preference in lighting and temperature.

#2 Taipei 101 Tower by C.Y. Lee & Partners

Named for its 101 floors, Taipei 101 held the record as the world’s highest building for six years after its completion in 2004. Its sustainable construction has also made it the world’s tallest green building. The building received LEED Platinum Certification in 2012 and has some of the most advanced disaster prevention features ever built.

Taiwan is heavily affected by typhoons, which makes building tall buildings a tricky business, to say the least. Massive storms hit the East Asian coastline each year, bringing wind and rainfall strong enough to take down entire buildings. Taipei 101 tackles this with unprecedented inventiveness. The building’s most notable engineering feature is its tuned mass damper. This element functions as a large pendulum that counterbalances the sway of the building by swinging in the opposite way on hydraulically controlled suspension cables. This movement is controlled and reacts precisely to the movement of the building.

#3 Apple Campus 2 –Cupertino- by Foster+Partners

Apple’s new spaceship-shaped campus in Cupertino, California, has been a hot topic of debate in the AEC community ever since the release of its first images. The heavily-publicized project has a ring-shaped layout enveloping a patch of greenery. It is outfitted with solar panels and will be powered mainly by an “on-site low carbon Central Plant”.

Foster+Partners included a 100,000-square-foot fitness center, 300,000 square feet of research and development facilities, and two miles of walkways and running paths for employees, underground parking, as well as an orchard, meadow and pond. The staff can also navigate the campus on bikes, electric golf carts and commuter shuttles. The building will feature the world’s largest panels of curved glass which will limit glare and provide views of the outdoors from any location inside.

The project received some criticism due to its inward-oriented design that reflects Apple’s notorious secrecy. Some critics have called it ““anti-urban, anti-social, and anti-environmental”. As the first images and impressions of the completed building emerge, we are curious to see if the project will fulfill its ambitions.

#4 Bullitt Center by Miller Hull

The Bullitt Center in Seattle features several systems that make it one-of-a-kind and justify its status of the world’s greenest commercial building. A third of the building’s roof is covered in photovoltaic panels that produce around 230,000 kilowatt-hours per year. Rainwater is collected in a 56,000-gallon cistern and reused throughout the building. It features composting toilets and none of the 350 common toxic chemicals, including PVC, lead, mercury and BPA.

All systems are monitored and the real-time measurements of indoor air quality, energy consumption and photovoltaic power production are available to visitors. One of the most prominent features of the building is the fact that these innovative engineering solutions are visible and celebrated through the building’s architectural style.

#5 Powerhouse Kjørbo by Snohetta

Norwegian architecture firm Snohetta undertook a renovation of an existing 1980s building in Bærum, just outside Oslo, and transformed it into the world’s first “energy positive building” (EPB) or “net positive” building. The 200,000 kWh of on-site photovoltaics produce twice as much energy required to meet the needs of the building. According to predictions, the building will generate enough power in the next 60 years to cover the total amount of energy used to manufacture all the building materials, as well the construction, operation and waste disposal. This is something that is often omitted when considering energy efficiency of contemporary buildings that strive for sustainable performance.

#6 Ten Thousand by Handel Architects

Ten Thousand Santa Monica is a 283-unit, 767,240 square-foot residential tower in Los Angeles comprising four crystalline masses topped with a dramatic angled roof. The building offers an amazing array of tech-infused amenities, including a relay delivery robot named CHARLEY programmed to navigate the building, deliver packages, meals, drinks, etc.

Each resident has an iPad mini that features the Ten Thousand app. They can access the main menu and choose the item to be delivered by CHARLEY. Besides providing connection to the delivery robot, the app also integrates a beacon technology system throughout the building that predicts the residents’ needs. The residents can also use the app-based valet system to pay for training sessions, drinks at the bar, reserve private dining rooms and event spaces, request vehicles, and pay rent.

#7 Ng Teng Fong General Hospital by HOK

The Ng Teng Fong General Hospital is a community college science building in Singapore that uses 38% less energy than a typical Singaporean hospital and 69% less than a typical U.S. hospital. Its design, conceived by HOK, is based on passive sustainability principles aided by several active systems that curb its carbon emissions and power consumption. It is rare for buildings of this type to achieve net zero energy.

The hospital also is the first medical campus to combine continuing care from outpatient to post-acute care in Singapore. Its focus on patient well-being was the driving force behind many of its features, including its heavy reliance on natural ventilation and the presence of vegetation throughout the campus.

#8 Bahrain World Trade Center by Atkins

The 50-story Bahrain World Trade Center (BWTC), known as the country’s first ‘intelligent’ building with integrated SMART IT systems, boasts a unique feature – 3 huge wind turbines tying its two sail-shaped volumes together. The 29 meter wind turbines, each supported by a 30-meter bridge spanning between the two towers funnel and accelerate the wind going in-between the sails. The building is the first building in the world to incorporate this type of technology–and at this large a scale– into its design.

The development also incorporates the use of heat recovery systems, variable-volume chilled water pumps, energy efficient fluorescent lighting, solar-powered roads and amenity lighting, as well as reflective pools at the entrances which provide local evaporative cooling.

#9 IBM Watson IoT HQ by Universal Design Studio

IBM’s new headquarters in Munich is the company’s largest investment ever in Europe, and will serve as a research hub for artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things and Blockchain, among other things. The building, designed by Universal Design Studio, will gather software engineers, programmers, architects, designers, cognitive scientists, researchers and clients working together to bring cognitive computing to IoT. Distributed across more than 25 floors, collaborative spaces will be equipped with IoT devices, occupancy sensors, and voice activation automated interfaces.

As one of the most technologically advanced buildings it can automatically adjust temperature and lighting to users’ preferences, and detect free spots which enables hot-desking. Server rooms are left visible to show the technology driving the experiences communicating transparency and openness.

#10 Sacramento Kings’ Golden 1 Center by AECOM

The solar-powered Sacramento Kings’ Golden 1 Center by AECOM is the first arena of its size to use a displacement ventilation system that directs fresh air upward from floor openings under the seating, instead of pumping forced air down into the arena from overhead diffusers. This kind of ventilation allows for cooling only the space around people instead of the entire building, which makes it more efficient and flexible compared to other ventilation systems. This means that the arena maintains stable temperatures at all times and during both hot and cold-weather sporting events. There is no need to pre-cool the building, so the building can host two events on the same day.

Furthermore, the air conditioning can be crowd-sourced, which means that the audience can use an in-game app to mark whether they’re too hot or cold in real time. The arena is the first to receive approval for the use of this kind of technology, and the first LEED Platinum–certified NBA arena expected to curb its carbon emissions by 24 percent compared to its predecessor–the Sleep Train Arena. The structure is powered entirely by a 1.2-megawatt solar array installed on its roof surface, and an 11-megawatt solar farm located 40 miles away.

Which technologically advanced buildings do you know?

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We recently published a list of must-watch TED talks for archipreneurs, which includes the one delivered by growth specialist and business strategist Knut Haanaes. Looking for reasons why companies fail, Haanaes finds that exploiting what you already have can be bad in the long term, while focusing only on exploration can be bad short term. Innovation and competence both need to be in place in order to successfully run a business today, and avoid becoming obsolete tomorrow.

Many among the most successful architecture firms in the world have long begun to widen the scope of their work, and continue to branch out into various fields outside of what we conventionally see as architecture. Technological innovation, cross-disciplinary partnerships and research collaborations go hand in hand with consistent delivery of successful projects. In fact, while offering reliable, top notch products and services is a great basis for building a successful business, innovation is the aspect that propels these firms forward and allows them to stay ahead of the competition.

1# BIG

By exploring new financing models and experimenting with innovative design solutions and materials, BIG is broadening the scope of architectural practice. Its incubator, called BIG IDEAS, allows innovators to create design prototypes, products and new materials for the AEC industry.

Among the projects being developed under the BIG IDEAS umbrella are an Internet of Things door lock called Friday, prototypes for a life-sized Tesla coil, steam-ring generators, smart building materials and even a Hyperloop high-speed transportation system. Also, the firm rigorously incorporates popular media and new technology in their marketing campaigns, utilizing GoPro videography, augmented reality, comic books, holograms to name a few.

2# Perkins + Will

One of the leading architecture offices in the United States, Perkins + Will, experiments with new technologies to improve healthcare design. They have recently established an in-house incubator program, which allows them to develop and support small research projects through micro-grants.

The firm also created 10 new laboratories that aim to tackle sustainability issues, resilience, the human experience, the design process, and mobility. In order to encourage designers to innovate, Perkins+Will organized an annual competition through which the most promising projects that are further developed within the Innovation Incubator System.

The first Innovation Incubator call-for-submissions resulted in 89 entries from Perkins + Will professionals competing for micro-grants of 40 hours of company-paid time over a six-month period. Nineteen were chosen from across their global offices, and each successfully completed projects, presentations or publications. Since then, the firm has awarded two cohorts of Innovation Incubator participants annually – in spring and fall of each year – funding at least ten projects per class.

3# NBBJ

NBBJ is among the first architecture firms that fully embrace Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR). While a number of firms in the design industry have examined the promise of VR, the firm’s partnership with Visual Vocal marks the first instance of an established design firm incubating a VR startup inside its own offices and developing new tools to improve decision-making.

The initiative is part of NBBJ’s ongoing investment in and development of digital tools. It will pilot the Visual Vocal software on design projects for healthcare, corporate, and urban planning clients. Ultimately the tool will then become available to the greater architecture, engineering, and construction industry.

4# KieranTimberlake

Philadelphia-based design studio, led by architect KieranTimberlake, has embraced innovation by turning their own office into a research lab where they test out various design and technological solutions related to energy efficiency, sustainable design and sensor-driven products for the AEC industry.

Here the team produces full-size prototypes of architectural elements, using their own “home” to create efficient innovative products such weather-tracking software and smart materials. They collect data from their own office to explore natural thermal comfort, as well as mass customization, off-site fabrication and prototyping.

5# Foster + Partners

Foster+Partners have managed to stay ahead of the competition for many years. The practice is on the frontier of innovative design thanks to it is dedicated research and development teams and numerous research collaborations. Their in-house team of researchers is a mix of material specialists, mathematicians, aerospace engineers, architects, artists and acousticians who use state-of-the art technological tools to design.

They were recently asked by the European Space Agency to design a habitat for the Moon. For this project they teamed up with space engineering company Alta and D-Shape, the organization behind the world’s largest 3D printer. The project is an inflatable skeleton structure that can be transported flat-pack style and assembled by robots using local materials like Moon dust to 3D print a protective shell.

While this specific project might seem too out there for those concerned with revenue and business growth, it is useful to notice that this dedication to innovation is also behind the projects such as the Gherkin in London and Hong Kong International Airport.

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What role does innovation play in your business? Do you think having an in-house idea incubator is something archipreneurs should consider?

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