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The world’s first 100% digitally enabled building and research facility
Designed as a model of post-2030 smart and sustainable construction, this digitally enabled facility integrates a diverse range of building systems technology (HVAC, lighting, building envelope, security, IT, and communications) to help propel Canada’s built environment towards net-zero emissions.
Across three interconnected areas of research, SCITHUB:
- Supports sustainability efforts to help move Canada’s build environment toward net-zero emissions
Offers a diversity of space types for advanced research on how humans and buildings interact
- Helps develop new technology that improves comfort, satisfaction, health, and productivity where occupants live, learn, and work (smart campuses, cities, homes, and workplaces).
Advancing a lower-carbon future through smart buildings
Prioritizing sustainability, smart building technology is a key solution to decarbonize our built environment.
The built environment is a major source of Canada's energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. Smart building technologies can help reduce the impact while improving comfort, health and productivity for the people who use buildings every day.
SCITHub provides researchers with a purpose-built environment to develop, test, validate and demonstrate technologies that can reduce emissions, optimize building performance, and enable preventative maintenance.
Spanning two floors, SCITHub brings a broad range of integrated building systems together in a digitally-enabled, controlled research environment, supporting full-scale research into the homes and workplaces of the future.
Testbeds: Pushing the boundaries of what’s possible
The SCITHub provides collaboration opportunities for researchers to develop, test, and validate smart building solutions using three distinct testbeds: The D4AI Command Centre, The Smart Home (Affordable Living Integrated Residential) Testbed, and the Smart Office (Schneider Electric Building Energy Intelligence Lab) Testbed.
Research: Enabling a smarter and more sustainable future
SCITHub provides researchers a living lab where a range of building systems scenarios can be simulated, supporting research, testing and innovation in the following three research areas.
Smarter Cities: Integrating building data with energy, water, transportation and public-service systems to support more efficient, resilient and sustainable communities.
Better Buildings for the Planet: developing algorithms and new technologies to reduce energy consumption and associated greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to support net-zero carbon goals globally.
Supporting Better Buildings for People: improving the indoor environment, making it healthier and more comfortable for occupants and - by extension - supporting learning and work productivity.
In the news
CFI grant will help build innovative new lab to explore digital and sustainable buildings
March 05, 2021
The Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) is supporting the development of the world’s first building designed to be 100 percent digitally enabled…
Green and Inclusive
November 19, 2021
As a vibrant and dynamic institution in downtown Toronto, TMU’s research mandate is all about future-forward and cutting-edge innovation.
Schneider Electric funds development of Ryerson smart buildings lab
March 6, 2018
Schneider Electric Canada will donate $1 million in kind to design and build a smart buildings laboratory at Toronto Metropolitan University in Toronto, ON.