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Flexing Those Buildings
Today's
buildings are being designed to be as flexible as the organizations
they house.
By Peter Downs
Organizations
today put a premium on agility. That entrepreneurial ethic may
have started in business organizations, but it is creeping into
not-for-profit institutions and government as well. As a result,
buildings, which once were considered fixed, now have to be flexible.
"They have to change as nimbly as the organizations" they house,
says Bill O'Dell, design principal and director of science and
technology at Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum.
"Everybody
in the professional design community today has to think flexibility,"
agrees Robert Boland, principal of ACI/Boland. "We build for the
long term, but building uses change frequently. So more
flexibility can prolong the useful life of a building."
Just
how often do owners and tenants change the way they use interior
space?
One
local architecture and interior design firm recently surveyed
businesses to try to answer that question. Forty-five percent
of those who answered the survey from Oculus, Inc. said that moving
and reconfiguring office space was an "ongoing process" in their
organizations. Another 22 percent said they had had a major move
or reconfiguration in the previous month. All of the respondents
had moved or reconfigured their offices within the previous year.
"We
knew change was constant from the people we work with most closely,"
says Oculus President Lisa Bell-Reim, "but
we do a lot of work with really large companies. The survey showed
us that change is constant not just at large companies, but across
the board."
"Somewhere
in the last five or six years, we realized it didn't matter how
fast we were building a building, we all had to accept that whatever
decisions the owner was making for layout, it was going to change
three times, at least, by the time they
moved into the space," O'Dell says.
Architects
also are having to think about designing the building so the client
can get out of it easily. "We are long past the time when a corporation
owns and uses a building for 30 years," he says. "I bet the average
corporate building is abandoned by its initial owner within five
years...If it is made so specific that only the Widget Company
can use it, then it has no resale value."
Michael
Haggans, group vice president at HOK, says building designers
have to accommodate three types of change: organizational changes,
technological changes, and consumer changes.
Organizations
are changing in "really remarkable ways" he says. "Folks aren't
organized around departments anymore, but around clusters of activities.
They come together on a task, a job, or a program basis," and
when that is done, they split apart and regroup around a new task,
job, or program. Architecturally, that means thinking carefully
about floor plates; cable routing; heating, ventilation and air
conditioning (HVAC); and eliminating hard walls to provide the
capacity to handle such constant change.
Many
financial institutions, for example, have moved away from separate
departments and rigid job descriptions in favor of a "greeter"
system where an employee meets a customer at the door and helps
him
or her complete whatever business they need to transact, says
Thomas Lombardo, vice president national sales at HBE Financial
Facilities. Architecturally, that calls for doing away with set
offices and even personal workspaces in favor of "hoteling," where
employees share offices, desks and equipment.
Technology
also is changing. In recent years, many companies and institutions
got caught without the capacity to implement new data and telecommunications
technologies. Now they've wised up and lowered their expectations.
They're putting in extra capacity to handle anticipated new technologies,
and they are realizing that wiring doesn't last 30 years anymore,
it lasts five.
A common
mistake, says Bell-Reim, is to forget to evaluate the HVAC system.
"Every piece of equipment or machinery you add gives off heat
and increases the load on your ventilation system," she says,
and she has seen companies' abilities to respond to new technologies
limited by the capabilities of their HVAC systems.
Above:
In the name of flexibility, companies are constructing buildings
that have more space than they actually need, allowing for future
expansion. The American Cancer Society is an example of an institution
that is leaving its options open.
Institutions
also have to respond to consumer demands for convenience. "Many
customers want to do business at their convenience, and the way
they want to do it," Lombardo says, and that means they have to
be flexible enough to handle all the ways consumers want to conduct
business. For banks, that means accommodating walk-in customers,
drive-thru business, ATMs, phone banking and Internet banking.
For hospitals, it means combining disciplines and co-locating
equipment in one location for the patient's convenience, says
Haggans, and that means not only rethinking electrical, data,
communications and ventilation systems, but also reevaluating
floor heights and structural supports to accommodate possible
new technologies and equipment. All of that is part of the campus
construction program at Barnes-Jewish Hospital.
Bell-Reim
says an interesting result from the Oculus survey was that the
biggest barrier to flexibility is lack of space. Many companies
and organizations simply do not adequately plan for growth. She
has one client that outgrew its new building before the company
ever moved in.
"Many
of our clients, including the American Cancer Society, are building
more space than they actually need. The extra space is made available
to a subtenant, thereby providing future expansion space when
needed," says Andrew Trivers, president of Trivers Associates
Architects.
"Initially,
the flexibility of systems furniture was thought to cost less
than fixed partitions,"
Trivers adds. "However, as the need for technology and change
in the office environment has skyrocketed, the technological complexity
and portability of these furniture systems has also increased.
As a result, flexibility now costs more than standard metal studs
and drywall partitions, a fact which is becoming more apparent
to owners around the country."
At
the same time, "we try to make clients see that change is inevitable
and happening faster and faster," Boland says. In a building built
for nimbleness, O'Dell adds, you can regroup people and change
all the phones, furniture and anything else they need in a matter
of hours instead of weeks. That saves time and money, and enables
an organization to better pursue opportunities as they arise.
And,
says Boland, one of the advantages of less rigid work environments
is better communications between colleagues, which improves morale
and productivity. That can more than offset the extra costs of
building a flexible interior.
Peter
Downs is a free-lance writer and editor of Construction News &
Review
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