The Next Age of HVAC: From Moving Air to Shaping Living Environments

Chakrapan Pawangkarat

Head of Property Management, JLL Thailand

Advisory Committee, Air-Conditioning Engineering Association of Thailand

Member ASHRAE, Board of Governors - ASHRAE Thailand Chapter

8 November 2025

1. The Shift Already Happened — We’re Just Catching Up

For decades, HVAC engineering has been grounded in a steady foundation: load calculation, system selection, energy efficiency, comfort, and reliability.

Those principles remain. But the context has changed dramatically.

Buildings today are not isolated assets. They are:

• Data nodes

• Carbon contributors

• Live environments shaped by user behavior

• Financial instruments under ESG scrutiny

• Infrastructure assets inside climate-risk zones

And HVAC systems sit at the center of energy, comfort, cost, and climate impact.

The role of HVAC engineers is evolving from system designers into environment architects — professionals who shape how buildings feel, breathe, adapt, and respond.

b) Ventilation as a Health System

Ventilation is no longer defined simply by air changes per hour. It is now measured by quality, distribution, and exposure.

Indoor air quality has become a core component of occupant health, cognitive performance, and building wellness standards. This reframes ventilation from a mechanical requirement to a healthcare function inside buildings.

The focus shifts from how much air we supply to:

How clean, how local, and how intentional that air is.

Key directions shaping the future:

• Real-Time Sensing and Demand-Responsive Ventilation CO₂, VOCs, and particulate sensors will modulate airflow dynamically —ventilation will respond to actual human presence and activity, not schedule blocks.

• Air Distribution That Prioritizes the Breathing Zone Better diffusers, stratification strategies, and airpath design will replace the old method of simply “adding more CFM.”

• DOAS + Energy Recovery as the Standard Backbone Decoupling ventilation from space cooling allows systems to deliver fresher air more efficiently, with heat/moisture recovery to protect energy performance.

• Adaptive Zoning Based on Real Occupancy — Not Assumed Diversity Spaces will be ventilated based on who is actually there, not who might be there.

This is ventilation as a precision system — measurable, traceable, and accountable.

c) The Rise of Intelligent, Self-Optimizing HVAC Systems

The next major performance leap will not come from new equipment, but from smarter interpretation and coordination of existing systems.

Buildings are filling with sensors and control capabilities — but most systems still behave as if they are blind. The future lies in systems that learn, anticipate, and adapt.

Future HVAC systems will:

• Identify and Correct Their Own Inefficiencies Delta-T degradation, valve hunting, coil fouling — the system will recognize these patterns early.

• Predict Failures Before They Happen Through trend analysis, equipment vibration profiling, and anomaly detection models.

• Tune Setpoints Based on Weather, Occupancy, and Grid Conditions Not fixed rules, but dynamic decision frameworks.

• Coordinate Plant, Airside, and Terminal Controls as One Ecosystem No more chilled water scheduling isolated from AHU logic and room controls.

This is HVAC as a continuously learning organism, not a static installation.

The challenge ahead is not acquiring the technology —it is training engineers who can interpret the data and design for adaptability.

The Themes Across All Three Drivers

Past Focus	Future Focus
Meeting load	Shaping and reducing load
Supplying more air	Supplying better, targeted air
Equipment efficiency	System and lifecycle efficiency
Scheduled controls	Data-responsive, predictive controls
Static design intent	Living, learning, building ecosystems

3. Design Must Reflect Reality: Lessons from Operations

Seeing buildings from concept to real-life operation reveals one truth:

A good system on paper is not always a good system in the field.

We have seen:

• Beautiful plant rooms that no one can access to maintain

• Sensors installed where no one can calibrate them

• Valves hidden behind ceilings where scaffolds can’t reach

• Condenser loops without sampling points

• Air handling units are sized correctly, but with filters impossible to replace without shutting down half a floor

Designers of the Future Must Add These Questions:

1. How will technicians access this component in year 15?

2. How will controls be tuned when occupancy patterns change?

3. If an emergency happens, how fast can the system fail gracefully?

This is where operations-informed design becomes a competitive advantage.

4. What Young Engineers Need to Learn (and Re-Learn)

a) Fundamentals are Non-Negotiable

HVAC design in the future still requires a strong grounding in:

• Psychrometrics

• Air distribution and hydronics

• Load calculation

• Refrigeration cycle

• Control theory

But knowing formulas is not enough. Young engineers must understand how air and water actually behave in buildings.

b) Data Literacy is Now a Core Skill

The buildings we design will generate millions of data points:

• Temperature profiles

• Occupancy analytics

• Maintenance logs

• Carbon tracking

• Weather forecasts

Young engineers must learn:

• How to read trends

• How to recognize inefficiency patterns

• How to visualize and communicate system performance

c) The Ability to Think in Systems

Future HVAC is not about a single chiller or AHU. It is about how systems interact:

• HVAC + façade performance

• HVAC + daylight design

• HVAC + occupant behavior

• HVAC + grid interaction and demand response

This requires systems thinking, not just component design.

5. The Future Design Process: From Sequential to Integrated

Old way:

1. Architect draws massing

2. HVAC engineer fits equipment inside constraints

New way:

1. Architect + HVAC + structural + digital + sustainability co-design from Day 1

This is moving us toward:

• Passive first strategies

• Climate-responsive envelope design

• Low-exergy system integration

• Hybrid natural + mechanical ventilation where feasible

The future engineer is not the last consultant in the chain. They are a strategic advisor from the beginning.

6. Preparing the Next Generation — Our Responsibility

After decades of seeing systems from drawing board to machine room floor, one realization is clear:

The next decade of HVAC engineering will shape the comfort, energy use, and carbon footprint of entire cities.

So we must mentor differently.

We must teach young engineers:

• To walk construction sites

• To talk to operators

• To trace piping with their hands

• To open AHU access doors and see how filters are changed

• To question rules of thumb

• To learn design from the machine room up, not just from simulation models down

Engineering is not just calculation. It is judgment formed through experience, curiosity, and humility.

7. Closing Thought

HVAC engineering is not about machines. It is about people, comfort, health, and our shared climate future.

Our role is to create buildings that:

• Feel good to be in

• Cost less to run

• Are resilient during outages

• Can adapt instead of decay

• Contribute less to global carbon load

This is not a technical shift only. It is a philosophical one.

And it begins with us.