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7 1 Introduction to Intelligent Buildings T.Nikolaou, D. Kolokotsa, G.Stavrakakis INTELLIGENT BUILDINGS: THE GLOBAL FRAMEWORK Sustainability is a term that has become an integral part of our vocabulary. By this word we understand the protection of the ecosystem through protection of its resources. The economic sustainability of buildings can be divided into two parts: the investment, which in the case of buildings and buildings stocks should be considered as long term resource productivity problem, and the running costs. Instead of minimizing the investment cost through low cost highly customized solutions, it is preferable to find for a given investment the solution which has the highest durability and reusability. Solutions which can be repaired and used in several ways have the highest long term potential. On the other hand, solutions with low energy consumption, easy to clean, to operate and easy to maintain have generally low running costs (and a feasibly low environmental impact at the same time). The social and cultural aspects of sustainability include comfort, wellbeing and safety of the building occupants. Human health protection, which is often wrongly associated with protection of the ecosystem, is in fact much more closely related to comfort problems (indoor air quality, etc.). The protection of cultural resources, above all building stocks and historic urban systems, protected biotopes and man-made landscapes gives a common framework for architecture, city planning, regional planning and landscape architecture. Environments which have a high cultural and social quality do not become obsolete. During its life cycle, which can vary from some months to hundreds of years, a building consumes resources from nature, produces large quantities of emissions and affects the ecosystem in many different ways. In addition to the general objective of maximizing the quality of a building, the design process should also aim at minimizing the resou