An Introduction for Mega House

Life cycle information integration is a significant to construction projects. Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology is highly potential for integrating the information over the construction life cycle. Saving information with RFID tags, essential information can be saved and updated along different phases of the construction life cycle. Moreover, Open-Building (OB) is an ideal platform to implement the life cycle information integration. Therefore, this project constructs an Open-Building “MEGA house” with four major issues, namely (1) Material, (2) Electronic, (3) Green, and (4) Automation, during MEGA house life cycle. The Material issue focuses on material sustainability. This project uses Nano-coating materials on the building’s outer walls. Accordingly, the walls can get clean by themselves. Besides, due to the request of change older, extension, rebuilding and relocation, the natures of open buildings were facilitated to the MEGA house for decreasing materials consuming. Secondly, Electronic denotes electronic facility networks. This project employs the RFID technology for systems of door control, sensor network, wireless air conditioner and an information doorplate to increase living safety, decrease energy consuming and keep essential information available. Moreover, Green means green concepts in the building design. The facilities including 3-in-1 solar panel, insulation glass, solar chimney and earth tube were implemented in the MEGA house, where the 3-in-1 solar panel provides clean energy for the building; the insulation glass keeps the extremely sunlight out of the building; the solar chimney makes a fresh air circulation with low power consuming, and the earth tube transfers the underground temperature with a thermal conduction exchange mechanism to keep the indoor temperature stable. Finally, Automation presents automatic building construct with information technology (IT). This project developed RFID Life Cycle Information Management System (RFID-LCIMS) to integrate the life cycle information related to the construction management. In the design phase, the information essential for construction was stored in the RFID tags embedded in building components. So that engineers not only track and monitor components’ construction states in the construction phase, but also the information for the demands of building extension, rebuilding or relocation can be retrieved in the maintenance phase. Summarily, this project focuses on the MEGA issues for the sampling house. This paper introduces this “MEGA House” project in Taiwan through this forum.