Creating empathic people-centric buildings

My last column, Humanistic Digital Inclusion has taken us all on the new road to people-centric buildings.

When you start down a new road you see everything differently. You meet new people, (like the people in our buildings), and you are exposed to new ideas which come with new ways of thinking. Humanistic Digital Inclusion is that new road that winds through our old building-centric thoughts while taking us to the new world of people-centric buildings and how we might achieve the necessary intellect and emotional intelligence for our implementations. We need to empathically grasp the feelings of the people in our buildings and somehow incorporate those feelings in our evolving digital models.

This article helps provide an endorsement of digital inclusion and direction for action: We are Not in the Business of Smart Building Technology, We are in the Business of Occupant Wellness is from a Swedish smart buildings research group Memoori. In comments on the Nordic Smart Buildings Conference, they write:

Intelligent technology is for humans, not real estate. It’s easy to get lost in the digitalization buzz and forget about the end value. At Nordic Smart Building Convention industry leaders and pioneers give you the human centered and efficient steps to smart digitalization.

It is very unfortunate that the Recomm IBcon event, The Age of Acceleration: Navigating Global CRE Technology and Innovation, is occurring the same date in the USA as the Nordic event. Be sure to watch this video on how we got to this age of acceleration. If you are unable to join us in Helsinki be sure to take in this event in Las Vegas. One of their sessions is on High Performance Digital Amenites – Tenant/Guest Engagement and Experience Platforms. AutomatedBuildings.com is a media sponsor of this event and I normally attend, but this year am engaged in learning more about what inclusion and empathy might mean for people-centric buildings.

This think piece from Australian company Aurecon, Intellectually and emotionally intelligent buildings, illustrates some key concepts (in fact, their entire website is thought-provoking and well worth a visit):

In a survey by Management Today magazine, 97 percent of respondents said they regarded their place of work as a symbol of whether or not they were valued by their employer. Yet alarmingly, only 37 percent thought their offices had been designed “with people in mind.”

It’s easy for some engineers to get so caught up in technology and digital tools that they forget the humans using them. An historical approach has brought about a misalignment between how traditional engineers view “intelligent” buildings and how owners and occupiers view “intelligent” buildings.

Buildings were never meant to operate in isolation from users; rather in “synchronization” with them.

For a building to be smart and connected, it doesn’t have to be complicated. It’s up to the building designers to consider all the complexities involved in designing a human-centred and emotionally intelligent building – and then to design “simple” ones. This means having empathy for the needs, challenges, daily tasks, desires, and long-term goals of the people who use them.

Creating buildings that are both intellectually and emotionally intelligent will be the currency in the future as companies start to realise that their bottom line depends largely on the wellness, happiness and productivity of their people.

But to achieve Intellectually and Emotionally Intelligent Buildings we need to understand those people better and what we are doing to them.

In case you missed this article, Maximizing Human Comfort – Why Do HVAC Systems Suck So Much? from Brad White, P.Eng, MASc Principal, SES Consulting Inc. Canada:

Most occupants in commercial buildings are dissatisfied with their space temperature and indoor air quality. That statement may not surprise most of us in the HVAC industry, but when you stop to think, it is a rather shocking denunciation of our craft. This dissatisfaction applies equally to both green and conventional buildings. Providing ventilation and space temperature control are the entire reason that HVAC systems exist, but the overwhelming majority of end users aren’t happy with the systems that we’re designing and building.

This follow up article, Thermal Delight - The Coming Revolution in Personalized Comfort also from Brad White talks a bit more about keeping our eye on the human-comfort prize:

We engineers sometimes get so caught up in HOW to do something we lose sight of WHY we’re trying to do it in the first place. So it was refreshing to listen to the recent episode of the 99% Invisible podcast, Thermal Delight, for some new perspectives on comfort in buildings; ideas primarily gleaned from leaders in the fields of architecture and design. I’d encourage everyone to listen to it for themselves as it raises some thought-provoking ideas around comfort in buildings. If you’re pressed for time, skip ahead to about 18:00.

When HVAC and building controls engineers talk about comfort, the discussion primarily revolves around setpoints. The default response to any issue or complaint regarding comfort is “Are we meeting setpoint?”, followed closely by “Do we need to change the setpoint?”. Research would suggest that this approach reveals a poor grasp of the factors that actually go into determining whether or not someone is comfortable in a space. It assumes a very static view of comfort when, in reality, comfort is relative and impacted by a number of factors that are continuously varying. Knowing that it is very easy to see why HVAC systems that depend on static setpoints with limited input from occupants have an extremely low rate of satisfaction. We like different things at different times, and our preferences are shaped by our mood, age, cultural norms, clothing choices, outside conditions, to name a but few of the variables. There are no handy calculations that tell you how to factor these things in, so it’s no wonder that the engineers who design HVAC systems have long focused almost exclusively on variables they can reliably control.

This article, The Value of Occupant Comfort, from Matt Ernst, PE, CEM, QCxP, LEED AP Burns & McDonnell USA echoes the problem:

I think Tom’s hits on another great point as well. The engineering community doesn’t care about the occupants of the building. They really don’t. Their job is to design a system that meets ASHRAE standards. The reality is that the burden of keeping people comfortable within a building has always been the sole responsibility of the building manager and head building technician. This team does not have the time, training, or tools to properly start and run and occupant engagement campaign. Until occupant satisfaction, and its direct manifestation in bottom line dollars can be transparently shown to both tenant and building management, no one will ever put in the time and effort to quantify occupant comfort/satisfaction on a regular basis.

The flaw of the past 20 years and the reason why the building comfort industry has shown little improvement has nothing to do with the quality of engineering or innovative product development. The problem is a management problem. How can we quantify occupant satisfaction and then actively manage it? The adage “you can’t manage what you can’t measure” continues to ring true today.

The Smart Building Industry needs to quantify occupant satisfaction and put it in dollars (directly calculated by improved occupant-employee productivity). The industry has never has been able to do this on a building by building, tenant by tenant, or person by person level.

This article from Marc Petock, Chief Communications Officer, Vice President, Marketing, Lynxspring & Connexx Energy, speaks to Building Wellness:

There’s no question that building wellness can generate value such as savings in personnel costs, reduced sick days, increased productivity, increased building asset value and greater marketability.

While we are beginning to see more information on well-being points and how they are impacting the built environment, we still have some way to go. We are still defining how to achieve building wellness and provide more proof of ROI, data, and metrics to occupants and building owners alike. While more business cases are required to be made, the building wellness movement is gaining momentum.