Expanding the Wave of Smartness: Smart Buildings, Another Frontier of the Digital Revolution

Abstract Smart buildings can be considered the future development direction of constructions: IoT, which extended connections and intelligence to real-life objects, led to a revolution in building practices, making it necessary to obtain edifices equipped with new original features. Seeking to respond to climate-related challenges of the twenty-first century, the technologies triggered by the digital revolution led smart buildings to become the natural evolution of the “sustainable” or NZEB buildings, introducing a series of innovations toward positive changes, continuing the path of hybridization with other disciplines which characterized this digital era. Indeed, the term “smart buildings” conventionally refers to all buildings that show some kind of innovations, concerning technical plants but also building envelope components or the building system as a whole. Besides, it can be said that in the wake of recent directives issued by the EU concerning the Green Deal, the Renovation Wave, and the New European Bauhaus, the technological culture of architecture has evolved, affecting also the aesthetic domain. Therefore, the paper aims to understand the new paradigms of current architecture, analyzing the advantages brought in terms of innovative methods and tools for controlling the quality of construction projects and processes, but also considering new digital techniques for design and representation, smart high-performance materials, adaptive and innovative technologies and/or sensors; thus trying to understand how architectural objects became inspiring examples of the combination of technological innovation and design, and how they can play an important role in terms of environmental sustainability and reduced consumption of resources.