The analogies between smart buildings and the human body persist reliably in industry media and analysis. While they are, in essence, nothing more than novel comparisons, they serve to help us understand the digital evolution of buildings in the cyber-physical age. By extending these analogies and recognizing their limits we can wrap our minds around the new and complex features of smart buildings to help us overcome the biggest challenges facing their development. The latest smart building façades, for example, adapt to the internal and external environment by activating shading and ventilation features, similar to human skin. The building feeds on electricity and gas to fuel almost all functions, such as heating, cooling, and computation, much like we do with food. The resources consumed can be stored as latent power, via energy storage technology in buildings and through systems like fat in the body. Each entity senses its internal and external environments, sending messages back […]