After this two day workshop, the participants were left convinced that significant new research opportunities exist at the interface of how people work, where people work, and how they can be made more effective. Much of the research agenda is dictated by an overarching need to develop a more quantitative evaluation of productivity gains brought about by innovations in information and building technologies.
During the workshop we chose to focus on general purpose commercial buildings. We did not consider special purpose buildings, such as schools or hospitals, nor did we consider the more global issues of urban infrastructures and planning as they are affected by the new information technologies. These are certainly worthy of further investigation.
The main recommendations of the workshop can be summarized as follows. We must undertake to capture what we already know about the interaction of information technology, physical spaces, and work effectiveness. We should evolve this critical repository of information as we learn more.
Furthermore, we must undertake extensive occupant-centered studies that investigate, in a quantitative manner, the influence of information and building technologies on individual worker and group worker effectiveness. These studies should span a wide range of worker environments and kinds of work, to place an understanding of worker productivity on a firm scientific foundation.
We should support the development of extensive testbeds that allow controlled experimentation of new technologies and their impact on worker effectiveness. These testbeds should include advanced technologies for communications, sensing and controlling, building services, and so on. We have described two possible testbeds, one communications oriented and the other focused on intelligent building sensing and control. Well designed experiments should be conducted to prove (or disprove) that these technology innovations make workers more effective.
Finally, we must build the case studies and perform the economic analyses necessary to convince the building industry of the real economic advantages of increasing a building's capabilities for reconfiguration and integration of new technologies over its lifetime.
We believe that an opportunity exists to build a new interdisciplinary research community at the interface of the disciplines discussed in this workshop report. The development of a repository of design and evaluation case studies, coupled with interdisciplinary evaluations and testbed development, will go a long way towards making this new research community a reality.
A major contribution could be made by this interdisciplinary activity by enabling extensive educational programs in these new technologies and their impact on work effectiveness. The development of an extensive and evolving repository of design studies and evaluations, coupled with comprehensive testbeds in which the new technologies are tested and their effectiveness is demonstrated, could form an effective strategy for informing existing industrial practice by influencing those with the power to make decisions about deploying new technologies in the buildings of tomorrow. Furthermore, such an evolving archive of knowledge and experience will enable the training of whole new generations of information and building technology developers and facilities managers who will use these technologies in future buildings.
Last Updated by Randy H. Katz, 22 January 1997