One Bangkok: Creating Southeast Asia's Smartest City

Introduction

One Bangkok, Thailand's first fully-integrated smart urban district, opened in October 2024, offering 1.8 million sqm of sustainably-designed space that prioritises people-centric living, seamlessly integrated IoT services, and internationally recognised WiredScore and SmartScore Platinum certifications.

The project includes a variety of spaces such as offices, retail, hospitality, residential, hotel, and cultural areas, intended to serve more than 100,000 people daily who will live, work, and visit there. As of 2024, it remains the largest active mixed-use project under construction in Southeast Asia.

It is the first project in Thailand with LEED Platinum certification for neighbourhood development and incorporates sustainable design features, such as the use of recycled building materials and systems to reduce energy and water consumption. Across its entire site, One Bangkok contains over 250,000 Internet of Things (IoT) sensors.

Despite its huge scale, One Bangkok’s developers sought to integrate numerous smart services across the project, including in energy, water, telecommunications, predictive maintenance, video analytics, security, traffic, and parking.

To achieve this Smart City integration, TCC Technology – a subsidiary of TCC Group responsible for One Bangkok’s smart services – sought the help of ddx.

ddx’s PMO was tasked with developing a smart city framework for One Bangkok, which included an integration platform designed to manage and unify various systems. This platform enabled a streamlined approach to workflow management and served as a hub for data consolidation and analysis, supporting a cohesive, data-driven operation across the city’s infrastructure.

Increasing Responsibilities

ddx’s involvement in the One Bangkok project had begun previously, working in collaboration with Hitachi Asia in the recruitment, installation and running of the One Bangkok smart services Project Management Office (PMO) team.

The smart city project at One Bangkok began in 2018 when Hitachi Asia was chosen by Frasers Property and TCC Group. ddx fully assumed responsibility in 2023 following Hitachi’s withdrawal, leading to the successful opening in October 2024. 

In order to put together the required PMO team to lead on smart services requirements, Hitachi Asia worked closely with ddx to recruit a team of experienced and talented industry experts to work full-time on One Bangkok and successfully lead on the delivery and implementation of desired smart services solutions across the project.

With the PMO team successfully recruited and performing to a high level, ddx’s involvement in One Bangkok significantly increased following Hitachi Asia’s withdrawal from the project in 2023. Because Hitachi had subcontracted all of the hands-on project work for the smart services PMO staff to ddx, they requested TCC Technology move the existing contract to ddx.

Due to ddx’s experience of the project and TCC Technology’s satisfaction with the existing level of service and quality of their delivery, TCC Technology was happy to transfer the contract to ddx, meaning ddx took on responsibility for integrating all new smart services within One Bangkok.

Systems Architecture

ddx’s systems architecture and integration development process began with the inheritance of Hitachi Asia’s high-level architecture design. From this, they worked on defining an expanded level of definition across the architecture of the whole solution set.

There are more than 30 operational technology and IoT systems across One Bangkok, including: HVAC, lighting, security, access control, energy management, IoT devices, sensors, elevator management, water management, parking management, smart waste, automation, digital signage, smart power and more.

The central integration platform was required to integrate these multitude of different systems, providing a unified data output for reporting and analysis. 

Integration Requirements

The main requirements for the integration platform were:

• Support for operational technologies like HVAC, lighting, and metering.
• Data aggregation and normalisation for various systems including data tagging and ontologies for people, places, and things within One Bangkok.
• Modelling and relationship data management.
• Digital Twins & BIM.
• Vendor Neutrality.
• Data Security and Privacy compliance with local and international data privacy regulations.
• API endpoints (REST, GraphQL, WebSockets) allowing real-time data processing.
• Centralised management and a single source of truth.

Vendor Procurement

The integration system involved numerous work packages, for which ddx undertook a technical evaluation of external vendors as part of the procurement process. In their procurement evaluations, ddx specifically looked at requirements applicable to One Bangkok. These included:

• API management
• Protocol translation
• Data normalisation
• Integration with existing ontology tools
• Data tagging and data mapping
• Monitoring and logging for ease of troubleshooting
• Load balancing

Once reviewed by ddx, vendors were put forward to go through TCC Technology’s procurement system, with those packages that were successfully selected then being managed within the smart city PMO.

Challenges

• Unprecedented scale and complexity of IoT integration.
• Limited existing benchmarks and experts.
• Vendor management and multilingual stakeholder coordination.
• Compliance with stringent data privacy and security regulations.

One Bangkok is a project that is the first of its kind in Southeast Asia, which presented a number of issues and complexities, ranging from design to implementation.

As no one had ever implemented the types of systems integrations and at the scale required within One Bangkok, there were no existing standards for ddx to study and attempt to replicate. Finding examples of where something similar had been applied on a similar scale was almost impossible. As there were also limited professionals and industry experts with knowledge of a project of this nature, ddx’s ability to locate and put together the required team was key to being able to successfully complete the project.

With a vast number of integrations involved in the smart services systems, ddx had to prioritise which integrations were the most important before analysing each of the diverse systems and their protocols and troubleshooting any issues to ensure they were compatible with the integration system being put in place.

Solutions

• Prioritised critical system integrations, leveraging expert recruitment and targeted troubleshooting.
• Managed comprehensive vendor evaluations, selecting providers meeting stringent technological standards.
• Implemented robust, compliant data security protocols across integrated platforms.

Locating the necessary vendors to create and install the various technology assets was also complex, as was managing the skillsets and communication between the large number of stakeholders involved in the project. As there were multiple vendors from multiple countries speaking different languages, linguistics, communication, and knowledge-sharing also needed to be carefully managed.

An additional challenge surrounded managing data privacy and the security risks involved. With new data privacy laws coming into effect in the region, any solution had to factor in that cyber security was paramount. With a huge amount of different international and local vendors all involved in the project, and all vendors managing a large volume of data, any normal challenge in cyber security and personal data protection was increased due to the sheer volume of data involved.

The numerous requirements from various stakeholders also affected the type of architecture which could be used and, with on-premises, on-cloud and hybrid infrastructure all required depending on the data sets involved.

ddx’s Achievements

After taking over smart services responsibilities for One Bangkok from Hitachi Asia, ddx inherited high-level design and expanded the solution definition.

Alongside the development of technical procurement packages and conducting evaluations of vendors, ddx managed the awarded packages through the smart city PMO.

Once vendors were selected, ddx successfully integrated and managed a diverse range of technologies and vendors. ddx also ensured vendor flexibility by utilising a vendor-neutral independent data layer.

Robust security protocols and data encryption was implemented across One Bangkok that complied with local and international laws.

At One Bangkok’s opening in October 2024, ddx’s smart solutions had already earned the prestigious WiredScore and SmartScore Platinum certifications, highlighting exceptional digital connectivity and smart services implementation.

Achieving WiredScore and SmartScore Platinum Certifications

ddx played a large part in guiding One Bangkok to Platinum certification from both WiredScore and SmartScore. By closely coordinating with stakeholders and conducting thorough assessments of the project's digital infrastructure, ddx identified areas for enhancement to meet the rigorous international standards required for these accolades.

ddx oversaw the implementation of advanced network infrastructure, including dual-path fibre-optic networks with multiple ISPs for redundancy and high-speed Wi-Fi throughout common areas. They integrated smart building solutions like IoT sensors and a sophisticated Building Management System (BMS) for real-time monitoring and automated adjustments, significantly improving energy efficiency. Additionally, ddx developed robust cybersecurity and data privacy policies compliant with international regulations, enhancing tenant trust and safeguarding operations. 

A Successful Opening

One Bangkok – the flagship smart use development by TCC Group and Frasers Property, and ASEAN’s smartest mixed–use development – opened its doors to the public in October 2024. Since opening, One Bangkok has been awarded Platinum rating by both WiredScore and SmartScore for their outstanding digital connectivity.

The systems architecture implemented by ddx has helped improve efficiency and automated processes across One Bangkok and provided interoperability and scalability for a wide range of systems into a centrally managed secure solution.

One Bangkok is reaping the benefits of a robust integration layer, the management on which has been handed to One Bangkok’s internal operations team in the Central Command Centre, built by ddx. ddx remains on hand to assist with future issues.

Since opening, One Bangkok has become a benchmark for smart urban development in Southeast Asia, exemplified by its WiredScore and SmartScore Platinum certifications. These achievements affirm the project's excellence in digital connectivity and smart services, enhancing its appeal to tenants seeking cutting-edge, resilient, and sustainable environments. ddx's contributions have been instrumental in achieving these milestones, ensuring One Bangkok stands as a model for future developments in the region.