Beyond the issues of economy, sustainability, security and connectivity, the question remains of how tomorrow’s smart buildings can actually make themselves better places to work in.
What can they do to enhance the experience of the people within their walls?
The type and quality of the lighting can improve wellbeing or aid productivity (blue light in the right part of spectrum has been shown to support concentration).
Using plants, allowing in external light, improving air quality and enhancing the décor and its aesthetics can all contribute to the indefinable quality of making a building ‘feel right’.
Even delivering the Wi-Fi coverage that enables every phone application to work seamlessly anywhere helps employees to be more collaborative and productive – and presents them with less stress!
As offices increasingly become the habitat of the hot desk, having sensors that can provide insights on the utilisation of space and services will help organisations squeeze even more value from their real estate.
But again, the data connectivity design of the building needs to be contemplated at an early stage to make such monitoring possible, and deliver the high performance workplaces that HR departments now seek.