Smart buildings have been proven to be a kind of flexible demand response resources in the power system. To maximize the utilization of the demand response resources, such as the heating, ventilating and air-conditioning (HVAC), the energy storage systems (ESSs), the plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs), and the photovoltaic systems (PVs), their controlling, operation and information communication technologies have been widely studied. Involving human behaviors and cyber space, a traditional power system evolves into a cyber-physical-social system (CPSS). Lots of new operation frameworks, controlling methods and potential resources integration techniques will be introduced. Conversely, these new techniques urge the reforming requirement of the techniques on the modeling, structure, and integration techniques of smart buildings. In this paper, a brief comprehensive survey of the modeling, controlling, and operation of smart buildings is provided. Besides, a novel CPSS-based smart building operation structure is proposed, and the integration techniques for the group of smart buildings are discussed. Moreover, available business models for aggregating the smart buildings are discussed. Furthermore, the required advanced technologies for well-developed smart buildings are outlined.