Specifically Speaking with Charles Buscarino

YARMOUTH, Maine—With a focus on enhancing the occupant experience, Charles Buscarino has certainly made his mark in the area of smart building design and consulting.

Buscarino is the founder and CEO of The Clarient Group, a smart building technology design and consulting firm based out of Iselin, N.J.

“In this capacity, I work day-to-day with a talented team to provide our clients with solutions for their building technology challenges as they create places for people to live, work, and play,” he told SSN.

As part of Security Systems News’ monthly column Specifically Speaking, the following is an exclusive Q&A with Buscarino:

SSN: What kinds of systems do you design/specify and what services does the company provide?

BUSCARINO: As a smart building technology design and consulting firm, we provide a complete suite of services for a variety of low voltage systems including security, audiovisual, structured cabling, network and wireless solutions, cellular DAS [distributed antenna systems] and private LTE [long-term evolution] systems, and PoE [Power over Ethernet] lighting, to name the most common.

In addition, our focus has been on the ideation and implementation of smart building solutions. This complements our more traditional work such as security. Our smart building work is rooted in identifying impactful user experiences and leveraging technology to deliver them. From a security perspective for example, streamlining the entry process for building occupants – employees and visitors - is often an immediate opportunity to enhance the occupant experience. Also, smart building solutions provide data and insights which enable building owners and managers to make informed decisions to improve current and future operations.

SSN: What vertical markets does the company specialize in? Any interesting projects that you can mention?

BUSCARINO: The Clarient Group is known for designing both conventional and innovative projects. We have a varied portfolio of project types, sizes, and locations. Our work includes multiunit high-rise residential, corporate offices and workplaces, hospitality, experiential entertainment venues, healthcare facilities, educational buildings, libraries, government buildings, and mixed-use development combining several of these verticals.

As far as interesting and innovative projects go… How about the world’s tallest residential building – Central Park Tower? Or a 3-million-plus-square-foot entertainment and retail complex with an indoor ski slope, water park, amusement park, and many of the best-known names in retail, like American Dream.

Then there is our work creating a global smart building digital blueprint and implementation for a major real estate company that will help them drive value into their portfolio of hundreds of millions of square feet of owned and managed properties.

But our work is more than these signature projects. We also engage in local projects whose impact is mighty – even if their size is small. Like housing for special needs populations that provide places to live and learn a trade in safety. Or a private residence built for a client restoring an ecological preserve in Panama. We believe technology should positively impact people’s lives in both large and small ways.

SSN: How did you get started in security and designing/specifying?

BUSCARINO: Our underlying philosophy has always been to design holistically with an integrated technology approach, where all systems work together to meet the needs of the occupants. From this perspective, security systems are a fundamental component of any property supporting both occupants and operators. Beyond just safety, security and associated systems can provide intelligence on occupancy, welcome occupants to the property, provide a single credential to facilitate their journey, etc. Understanding security systems, their breadth of capabilities and their direct impact on the user experience has made designing and specifying of security systems a core component of our services.

SSN: Can you talk about what new or emerging technologies you are seeing or specifying today?

BUSCARINO: As one looks holistically at a property and the occupant’s journey through it, we find the need to integrate multiple systems such that the individual systems begin to behave as one. This can include parking systems, EV charging, turnstiles, elevators, smart lockers, checking into conference rooms, ordering food, set temperature, turn lights on/off, etc.

Previously siloed systems are now called on to work together to optimize that “smart building experience.” In order to enable this in these integrations in a structured and manageable way, we are applying IoT platforms to be the digital integration layer of the modern smart building. These platforms not only provide the integration framework but also data collection, business analytics and dashboards, digital commissioning, fault detection, etc. We are applying these solutions in many of our more complex projects and expect to see their inclusion in future properties to be more commonplace.

SSN: What is your view on the industry moving forward?

BUSCARINO: As mentioned previously, we see the industry moving ever so gradually toward a collection of integrated systems with each providing its own unique value to the occupant experience. A security system not only supports the health and safety of the occupants and associated property, but it is often the source of truth for an individual’s identity.

This source of truth when made available to other systems through integrated solutions can become a reference for managing identity and trust. This is just one example of how we see a future where proprietary, stand-alone systems give way to open systems which, when combined, provide a holistic approach to enhancing the occupant experience.