Together and non-profitably towards a sustainable real estate industry

Developing the buildings of the future

Objective

The aim of the foundation is to research and create innovations in the construction and real estate industry to positively influence societal, social, technical, ecological, economic and legal factors.

Climate change, an aging society, increasing urbanization and a shortage of living space, especially in urban centers, are just a few examples of current and future challenges that both society and the construction and real estate sector must face. The founder UBM Development has recognized this development and, with the non-profit Smart Building Innovation Foundation, would like to make its contribution to shaping the sustainable and livable construction and real estate industry of tomorrow.

In particular, the foundation is intended to develop and research ways that can lead to the long-term reduction of emissions and resource consumption, to the optimization of economic efficiency as a contribution to sustainable office and living concepts, and to the systematic and purpose-oriented exploitation of the potential of digital overall solutions. It is intended to create a platform for the scientific support of application innovations and to bring together actors from society, industry, politics, technology and science in the spirit of promoting the common good in order to show new solutions.

Purpose of the foundation

The purpose of the foundation is to promote science and research, environmental protection, including climate protection and education.

The purpose of the foundation is achieved through the development, implementation and promotion of research projects, in particular to promote climate protection in the construction and real estate industry.

Long-term collection and evaluation of data within the scope of the foundation's purpose to validate the foundation's work results.

Carrying out information events, publishing studies, publishing research results and innovations. Participation in and establishment of special purpose companies. 

implementation

The foundation creates a platform for scientifically supported application innovations. Representatives of the real estate industry, industry, technology and science work together on this. The innovations created will show new solutions and thus contribute to the sustainable and livable construction and real estate industry of tomorrow. With these findings, the foundation wants to make a contribution to the (further) product development of all interested parties.

Mixed project teams - consisting of partners and supporters of the foundation - work agilely and data-based on specific problems in the construction and real estate industry. The intention is to provide real estate projects that can be used as realistic test fields (real laboratories) for these foundation projects. Other partners and sponsors provide the foundation with financial (earmarked) contributions, technologies and/or knowledge from their areas.

The way of working attaches great importance to application innovation. Therefore, future use cases will be evaluated for their benefits and will address practical questions. All steps follow a structured approach, analogous to a start-up. They are characterized by clear role distributions and are expressed in an agile, hypothesis-driven way of working.

A central element The foundation's goal is to build a data lake into which various real laboratories contribute their data over time. The data from the various partners from the real estate developer, the planners, the system manufacturers, the users, the operators and the supply and disposal companies offer a broad spectrum to improve efficiencies and create actual benefits. Particular attention is paid to the creation of standards for GDPR-compliant data processing in order to provide the foundation and all those involved with usable access.

Through regular exchange formats between the working groups as well as with potential users and experts, as well as through publications accompanying the project, it is possible to make the new findings available to the foundation partners, the entire industry and the other interested public in the spirit of the foundation's purpose.  

Guiding principles

With our work we want to make a contribution to society and to the further development of the construction and real estate industry. That's why we work according to the following guiding principles: fact-based, interdisciplinary, collaborative, innovative, meaningful, agile, modular, transparent.

Our work is social significant and strives to realize actual added value. We enable improved usability of existing innovations, make them available and create livable and inclusive buildings that can be used for generations. We contribute to energy-efficient buildings during operation, thereby optimizing CO in the long term2-footprint of office and residential buildings and contribute to ecological sustainability. We strive to optimize the utilization and usability of buildings - in this way we are responding to urbanization trends and the increasing demand for flexibility and more sustainable use of buildings.

We work in partnership together at eye level. We present ourselves interdisciplinary and bring a wide variety of perspectives into our work: society, industry, politics, technology and science. We are jointly committed to a living lab approach: UBM brings in buildings as a real test field, while corporate partners make their technologies and knowledge available in collaboration characterized by exchange. We include different views and perspectives in our work: scientific support creates (data) validation and user panels offer exchange with operators and investors. We create a common data platform and establish regular exchange between all partners in order to promote and encourage the sharing of knowledge and work statuses.

We focus on innovative Topics and work in agile Teams to achieve results quickly. Our projects are modular structured so that different topics can be worked on in parallel. We work based on hypotheses and use the foundation's work and dedicated budget to supplement today's building equipment by testing new applications without duplicating conventional building planning steps. We focus on quickly usable results by incorporating agile working methods. We work on several topics simultaneously in a multi-project approach and create comprehensive, tangible (data) models - in this way we make innovations reusable across individual projects in the long term.

Our activities are characterized by fact-based Act and innovate, with a strong focus on collecting and evaluating certified data. This is how we work transparent and allows insights for all partners. We commit ourselves and our work to the applicable data protection standards and place integrity at the heart of our work; In this way, we enable uniform certifications and create standards. We work data-based - by linking data across different building life cycle phases, we enable a holistic observation and evaluation approach. We let our findings flow back to society and thereby highlight areas in which digitalization can make a contribution to more sustainable buildings.

Organs of the foundation

The board of trustees and the board of directors form the most important main bodies of the foundation. The foundation is represented and operationally managed by its board of directors. The board of trustees supports and monitors the foundation's actions and advises the board in its work. The board of trustees can form committees and set up a foundation advisory board.

Board of Trustees

The board of trustees assumes a supervisory role and accompanies the work of the foundation according to its purpose. The Board of Trustees consists of at least three people who are appointed for five years each. It is staffed by representatives proposed by the nominal donors as well as people who can contribute special knowledge to the foundation's work or promote the foundation in a special way. The Board of Trustees is composed as follows:

Stefan Klepzig

Strategic Sales Director,
Schneider Electric

Jörn Dieckmann

Wirtschaftsprüfer, Steuerberater & Partner, Forvis Mazars

Thomas Black

Managing Director of New Systems Sales & Digital Innovation, Schindler Deutschland AG & Co. KG

board

The board manages the foundation's business and represents the foundation externally in legal transactions. The board can consist of up to three natural persons, whose term of office is also 5 years. Its members are accountable to the Board of Trustees.

Andreas Thamm

Chairman of the board,
Managing Director,
Intesia Group Holding GmbH

Daniel Reisener

Partner,
Forvis Mazars
GmbH & Co. KG

Advisory Board

An advisory board was formed to advise and support the foundation committees. The Advisory Board consists of at least three people who are appointed for three years each. The advisory board includes people from science and industry who have particular expertise and experience with regard to the fulfillment of the foundation's tasks.

Jürgen Blank

Schindler

Prof. Dr. Olga Fink

EPFL

Thomas Kirmayr

Fraunhofer

Prof. Dr. Dr. Thomas Schildhauer

UdK

Prof. Dr. Hartmut Schmeck

KIT & FZI

Prof. Andreas Wagner

KIT

Frederike Wittkopp

Schneider Electric

Smart Building Innovation gGmbH

Smart Building Innovation gGmbH bundles and carries out the operational day-to-day business of the foundation organization through its own employees or those sent by the founders, as well as through purchased benefits in kind. The gGmbH's day-to-day business is characterized by the planning and implementation of research and innovation projects, the so-called use cases (areas of application) and solutions (approaches to a solution).

The management of Smart Building Innovation gGmbH includes:

Frank Hermanns

Managing Director
Smart Building Innovation gGmbH

Jan Sprenger

Innovation Manager & Authorized Signatory
Smart Building Innovation gGmbH

Johanna Bauer

Executive Assistant SBIF & Authorized Signatory
Smart Building Innovation gGmbH

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