About Me

Background

My name is Abigail Kryszan, and I am currently a junior. I am in the BS/MS program. My undergraduate major is architectural engineering with a structural concentration. My graduate major is civil engineering with a structural concentration.

My first co-op was with the City of Philadelphia Department of Public Property Facilities Division. This position involved traveling to various City-owned buildings for various reasons. Most often, I visited fire stations and police stations. We were responsible for the maintenance of these buildings. Tenants would submit work order requests when something was amiss. Depending on the request, we would travel to the building to see for ourselves what was going on. After the visit, we could decide what needed to happen.

I focused mainly on HVAC equipment. One of the buildings we visited was the Police Training Center up in the Northeast. The air conditioning unit in the gym was not working. Instead, they had to keep the exterior door open and hope for the best. The HVAC system was "online." We could go to their computer and see all the settings for the system, as well as what was and wasn't working. This is my only experience with BIM.

Expectations

I am hoping to learn more about intelligent building technology can lead to improvements in sustainability. Buildings unfortunately contribute negatively to the environment, so we need to figure out how to mitigate these issues before it's too late.

Interesting Evernote

I found the article titled "True AI is Both Logically Possible and Utterly Implausible" to be interesting. It was a neat argumentative piece countering claims that AI isn't feasible.

Initial Definition of Intelligent Building

A building that can adjust itself to become more efficient in various aspects.