always_building a sustainable environment

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ALWAYS BUILDINGTHE PROGRAMMABLE ENVIRONMENT

JIM LONGJENNIFER MAGNOLFI

LOIS MAASSEN

HERMAN MILLER CREATIVE OFFICE


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ALWAYS BUILDINGTHE PROGRAMMABLE ENVIRONMENT

JIM LONGJENNIFER MAGNOLFI

LOIS MAASSEN

HERMAN MILLER CREATIVE OFFICE


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2008 Herman Miller, Inc., Zeeland, Michigan 49464Printed in U.S.A. on recycled paper

HermanMiller.com andHMConvia.com

ISBN 978-0-9816934-0-8
http://www.hermanmiller.com/http://www.hmconvia.com/http://www.hmconvia.com/http://www.hermanmiller.com/


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This book marks a milestone in the development of a new idea for Herman Miller. It results from the contributions of a network of people, both inside and outside the company, thinkers, innovators, technologists,and practitioners who are keenly interested in more sustainable built environments.

Wed particularly like to acknowledge the work of our colleagues in the Herman Miller Creative Ofce,who rst described and tested Project Purple, a path tothe promise of programmable environments.

Special thanks to the Purple Design Concept Team,comprising Danny Hillis and Bran Ferren, founding partners of Applied Minds, Inc., and Sheila Kennedy, founding partner of Kennedy & Violich Architecture, LTD.Their work and insight drove the rst interpretation of these ideas. Further, we thank Ayse Birsel, co-principal of Birsel+Seck, for her special contributions to the early product concepts.

We thank the Convia business team for contributing information for this book and for taking a foundation for programmable environments into the marketplace.

All of these and many more contributors are advocates for change in the way in which the built environment is planned, designed, constructed, and used. We are grateful to be their representatives in putting these ideas into print.


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INTRODUCTION

THE PROMISEOF PROGRAMMABLE ENVIRONMENTSBuilt environments are out of sync with the change requiredin our economy and society; they dont take advantageof technology to be responsive either to human needs or todemands for sustainability. Five areas of change help us seea new direction for the built environment.

OUR EXPLORATIONOF PROGRAMMABILITYThe Herman Miller Creative Ofce saw potential for new valuein making buildings less rigid and more sustainable. Findingthat space division and utility delivery caused rigidity, we setabout to nd ways to apply modularity and programmability as two paths to exibility.

ACHIEVING THE PROMISEOF PROGRAMMABILITYGiven our exploration, weve identied fundamentaldesign principles and thought about how programmableenvironments will be created and experienced. We thinkthese environments will make peoples lives better.We invite others to explore, invent, implement, and learnalong with us.

FURTHER READING

CONTENTS

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In the United States more than 824,000 ofce buildings holdmore than 12 billion square feet. More than 213,000 enclosed andstrip malls add another 7 billion square feet; 129,000 health carebuildings add 3 billion square feet more. In 2006 alone, the last

year reported, $544 billion was spent on commercial constructionprojects. From any perspective this is economically compelling.There are very few businesses that dont participate in some way inthe construction, operation, and use of the built environment.Retail businesses measure their performance in spatial termsdollars of sales per square foot. Vice presidents of corporate realestate are endlessly searching for measures for the productivity of their investments in ofces. It is obvious that space and businessare inextricably linked. What is not obvious, and what is surprising,is how poorly business builds and uses space. The National Instituteof Building Sciences, which tracks both commercial and residentialconstruction, quotes a Construction Industry Institute estimate of

up to 57 percent non-value added effort or waste in our currentbusiness models. This means the industry may waste over $600billion each year. On the demand side the problem is equally dire,as described in Business Week :

Working anywhere but work is causing a vast emptying outin corporate-land. About 60 percent of the ofce space thatcompanies pay so dearly for is now a dead zone of darkeneddoorways and wasting cubes. Imagine if a factory had autilization rate of 40 percent, says Mark Golan, vice presidentfor worldwide real estate and workplace resources at Cisco

Systems, Inc.Huge waste in the construction process that provides space

that ultimately doesnt even get usedfrom any perspective this isa big problem.

Whether the organization is service or manufacturing, prot ornot-for-prot, public or private, its operations intersect with designin solving the problems of its use of space. So this is a business

INTRODUCTION

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book because it is about a business problem, but it is a design bookbecause design is the source of the solution.

Charles Eames said, in the early 70s, Design depends largely on constraints. Game developer Dino Dini elaborates: Design issimply the management of constraints, and the choice of whichconstraints are nonnegotiable is crucial. Solving the problem of space requires a reevaluation of the negotiability of constraints.What once seemed crucial may no longer be so, and what is crucialnow may be entirely new.

One of those new constraints is a word that wasnt even knownwhen many of the buildings we see today were built: sustainability.By many measures sustainability, or green building, has yetto have a signicant effect on the way in which we build, operateand occupy the built environment. But we believe it will, andso it provides the foundation for our reevaluation of the designconstraints in the problem of space.

We have found a way to think about the interiors of commercialspace that is aligned with the constraints of the beginning of the21st century. Our ideas stand on the shoulders of the work of inventors, architects, designers, and thinkers from around the world.The terms coined to describe the future of place point toward, butnever fully capture, what a sustainable built environment will be.Ubiquitous computing, ambient intelligence, exible architecture,adaptive architecture, kinetic structures, smart architecture, intelligent buildings, responsive architecture these are all different ways todescribe very similar phenomena. We have chosen to call our idea

programmable environments .What we describe accepts the work that has gone before as a

fundamental part of our view. Environments will be imbuedwith intelligence. Although the full meaning of that is yet to beworked out, we do know we will want that intelligence to serve;to us that means it must be programmable. But it is not just theintelligence that is programmed, it is the whole of the environment.

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A programmable environment is as much about the creation andmanagement of space as it is about the intelligence that is in it; it isan environment for people to occupy, to meet, to educate, to heal,to worship, and to enjoy one anothers company.

Throughout this discussion, we intend the larger meaningof the word program: a plan of action to meet a goal. We want tocreate environments with which we can interact to achieve ourgoals. We want programmable environments. Our primary andnonnegotiable design constraint is sustainability.

This book is the story of the development of the idea of programmable environments and how that idea has generatednew product ideas. Our goal is to change how buildings aredesigned, built, managed, and used. We know that can only happenone building and one day at a time, with many hands and mindsat work on the problem. This is our start.

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How can architects and designers

use information as a building material?


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How can the construction process

be made easier and less costly through

embedded technology?


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How can our environments

be adaptableeven by the people

who use themafter theyre built?


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How can technology

reinvent our environments?


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THE PROMISEOF PROGRAMMABLE ENVIRONMENTS


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Observing the digital transformation of society teaches us a greatdeal. We have framed a vision of the future where informationtechnology and distributed computing will not only permeateour work and daily experiences, but will also constitute the very makeup of our built environment. This will create tremendousopportunities for solving one of the long-standing problems inbuildings as we know themthe costly and time-consuming effortrequired to accommodate change.

Our buildings are at odds with the notion of change. Fixedutilities, unforgiving infrastructure, rigid materials, and lack of control inhibit our ability to affect our surroundings. Buildingsallow us only to be passive participants in their use. But whatwe require changes, and our inability to change the environmentleads to its obsolescence.

The process of designing a building or interior environmentis imbued with exibility. It is a dynamic dialog between designerand artifact inuenced by the requirements and values of allstakeholders. Flexibility, however, disappears once constructionbegins. The efciency of construction and the economics of theoverall process hinge on the design being frozen in time, castingchange as an enemy of budgets and schedules. In the end, thespace as built constitutes the nal design. The building becomesa static expression of a set of requirements that began to changebefore the rst occupant moved in.

New technologies can resolve the conict between the freedomand interactivity of the design process and the static environmentsthe process generates. It is becoming possible for buildings to changemore efciently and gracefully. Materials are becoming less rigid.Infrastructures are becoming more modular, consequently moresuited for change. And control has the potential to be distributedin ways that allow design processes to become a part of the useand operation of a building.

The development and application of this technology requiresinnovation in all aspects of building design, construction, operation,

We shape our buildings,and afterwards our buildingsshape us.

Winston Churchill, 1943

We become what we behold.We shape our tools and thenour tools shape us.

Marshall McCluhan, 1964

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and use. We believe this innovation in programmability is thepathway to sustainability in the built environment.

The programmable environment recognizes the generativepotential of digital technology to create both form and compellingexperiences. Digital technology must become an intrinsiccomponent of the built environment, permeating the building andtransforming its architecture from a design result into a designmedium. Historically, inhabitants have accepted and adapted totheir built environments. In contrast, programmable environmentsadapt to their occupants. As a design medium, the programmableenvironment affords opportunities for design engagement withall of its stakeholders.

This idea describes environments that are sustainable becausethey are designed for change, that at any moment are statementsof our aspirations, that give form to the values driving societysdevelopment and progress. A programmable environment invitesa new design paradigm charged with hope and innovation.

A NEW DESIGN MEDIUMThe notion of design mediumapplies to the technology itself,which allows designers ofprogrammable environmentsto do things differently thanpreviously possible. It alsorefers to the opportunities forinnovation in the businesspractices of those involved inthe design, building, operation,and use of programmableenvironmentsunderstoodas the things organizations doto run their businesses.

The promise that technology

offers our buildings is alreadyevident in our carswhich wetreat as mobile personalhabitats. If cars can rememberthe comfort settings eachdriver prefers, why cant abuilding? If a car can providediagnostic information to amechanic, why cant a buildingprovide the same to a facilitymanager? If a car can providefeedback that helps a driver

improve her gas mileage, why

cant a building help people useit better?

This analogy points us in theright direction, but what weenvision reaches much further.Cars simply enable theirdrivers to use controls moreconveniently, to take care ofand use well the existingmachine. You cant move theheat vents, create a differentsignal (a sound instead of a

light) that your tires need air,

update the styling, or changeyour car into a boat when youreach the ocean. A car withthat kind of adaptability wouldcome from a radical reinventionof an entire industrywhich iswhat we propose for designand construction.

EVIDENCE OF POTENTIAL

DIAGNOSTICINFORMATION

PERFORMANCEDATA

PERSONALIZEDSETTINGS

INTERCONNECTIVITYWITH DIGITAL DEVICES



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Changes in technology, behavior, and expectations are convergingin the built environment, creating opportunity, demanding newarchitecture, and challenging us to gure out how to provide it.

Since at least 1956, when Alison and Peter Smithson introducedtheir House of the Future, architects, designers, and technologistsaround the world have been trying to understand the potential of technology in the built environment. Today, those efforts appearin sustainable architecture, intelligent buildings, various experimentsthat add computing to space, developments that merge media andarchitecture, and a host of other nascent movements and projects.

In 1956, much of this speculative and future-looking workwas infused with optimism; now there is urgency. Concern aboutresource consumption and ecological impact is widespread, andconstruction and buildings play a major role. David Harris,president of the National Institute of Building Sciences, writes,The construction industry is in the middle of a growing crisisworldwide, noting that 40 percent of the worlds raw materialsare consumed by buildings, and buildings use 40 percent of theworlds energy.

There are, at the same time, exciting possibilities for change.Architect Mike Pearce, in collaboration with Arup Associates,designed and built the Eastgate Centre, a mid-rise building inZimbabwe that uses only 10 percent of the energy of comparablebuildings of traditional design. The building mimics the self-coolingmounds built by termites in the Zimbabwe wild. And the Institutefor the Future speculates, High-powered computing capability will be embedded in our physical environment, in living things,medicine, walls, furniture, garments, tools, utensils, and toys. Wellbe able to interact with information in place as naturally as weinteract now with physical things, which will become increasingly less passive, and more active.

CONSUMPTION OF ENERGYAND MATERIALSForty percent of the worldsraw materials are consumedby buildings, and buildingsuse 40 percent of the worldsenergy.

THE DEMAND FOR A NEW ARCHITECTURE

HOUSE OF THE FUTUREDesigned for theDaily Mail Ideal Home Show in 1956 byBritish architects Alison andPeter Smithson, the houseincluded a table that rose fromthe oor to coffee or diningheight, a shower that blastedthe user with warm air, and aself-cleaning bath.

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Our interest is in designing, building, and using the builtenvironment. Our particular focus is the interior spaces of buildingshow they will change, how they can be better, howthey can deliver what occupants need and do so more efciently.What we need are new ways of seeing the world and different waysof thinking about how we interact with our environments. Hereare ve areas of change that provide some of these perspectives.While neither comprehensive nor conclusive, they provoke newideas and lead to different ways of thinking.

Toward efcient, sustainable construction

The global construction industry employs more than 100 millionpeople and an annual investment estimated at $4.6 trillion. Of that,the Construction Industry Institute estimates up to 57 percentnon-value-added effort or waste; vacant buildings and empty ofces suggest underutilization. Yet the amount of commercialspace continues to grow. Since 1950 the amount of commercialspace per capita in the U.S. has grown from 183 to 268 square feetper personan increase of close to 50 percent.

The costs of operating and owning a building are high, in bothnancial and environmental terms. Commercial buildings in theU.S. account for nearly 18 percent of energy consumption, includingnearly 33 percent of all electricity. Costs compound as occupantscome and go, a buildings use changes, and new technologies areintroduced and layered in; the building and its systems becomemore complex and more difcult to support and maintain.

Building obsolescence is signaled by the proliferation of forlease signs in our business parks, downtowns, and strip mallswhile new construction goes up alongside. In the U.S. alone, nearly 50,000 commercial buildings are demolished each year, adding tonearly 150 million tons of construction and demolition waste thatis difcult to reclaim or recycle.

Sustainability is never a staticgoal. It can only be a process.

Bruce Sterling

DEMOLITION ADDSTO LANDFILLThe nearly 50,000 commercialbuildings demolished each yearin the U.S. produce nearly 150million tons of construction anddemolition waste each year.



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LEARNING FROM NATUREThe Eastgate Centre is cooledwithout conventional airconditioning through biomimicry.Termites in Zimbabwe openand close ventilation passagesthroughout the day, usingconvection currents to keepthe interior of their enormousmounds at a constanttemperature. Breezes aredirected into the cool mudbelow the mound during theheat of the day; those passagesare closed at night to preservethe heat retained in themound. The Eastgate Centrereinterprets the same principlesthrough its application ofvents, ducts, exhaust ports,and chimneys.

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There is signicant work underway to address these issuesof expense and environmental impact. The National Instituteof Building Sciences, Lean Construction Institute, and the U.S.Green Building Council approach the same issues from differentperspectives. Better design informatics, like Building InformationModeling, make it possible to foresee and correct problems beforeconstruction starts. The lean manufacturing principles popularizedby Toyota are equally applicable to construction. Architects,engineers, and design professionals are clearly showing interest inand understanding the value of green building practices, althoughthey are still not widely adopted in the industry at large.

The inefciencies of the fragmentation of the design andconstruction process evoked a more radical response from DennisKaspori, who calls for open source architecture. In contrast withthe hierarchical cathedral model, with the autonomous geniusof the chief designer at the top, he calls for a bazaar modelbased on cooperation. It conforms to the network logic of aneffective distribution of ideas, as a result of which these ideas can betested in different situations and improved. It makes use of theswarm intelligence of a large group of users and/or developers.

The convergence of all of these streams of thoughton eliminating waste from both the means and the ends of constructionsuggests the potential for far-reaching change inhow buildings are designed, created, and used.

GROWTH IN GREEN BUILDINGSince the launch of the U.S.Green Building Council in thelate 1990s, the growth inmembership and registered

projects has been extraordinary:from 533 accredited professionalsin 2000 to 20,900 in 2006;from roughly 25 registeredprojects in 2000 to nearly 700in 2006. Nevertheless, McGraw-Hill Construction estimatesthat only 5 to 10 percent ofnonresidential constructionstarts in 2010 will be designedusing green principles.

SPACE PER CAPITAINCREASESSince 1950 the amount ofcommercial space per capitain the United States has grownfrom 183 square feet perperson to 268 square feet perpersonan increase of closeto 50 percent. At this rate ofgrowth there will be 350 squarefeet of commercial space perperson by 2050.



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NEW COLLABORATIVE MODELSExamples of collaborativepractices can be found in artand in software engineering.They offer an alternativemodel in which innovation isachieved through the activeparticipation of all parties.Ideas and products are nolonger developed in a closedproduction process organizedaround the autonomy of theartist or the company, butevolve out of the pragmatismof usage. That is the motor ofinnovation.

Dennis Kaspori,A Communism of Ideas:

Towards an Architectural Open Source Practice

CATHEDRAL COLLABORATIVE

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Toward smart things in smart buildings

Technology and architecture have a long symbiotic relationship,in which advances in one eld enable or demand changes in theother. Electric power, elevators, new materials, computer-basedmodeling of innovative structures: These all opened new possibilitiesfor buildings. Changes in architecture and the economics andculture that often drive them have required new technologies.Large-scale engineering and materials innovation have resulted,

as well as things as simple as re alarms, illuminated exit signs,PA systems, security cameras, and sprinkling systems.Everywhere there is evidence of technology getting smaller and

cheaper, easier to be distributed and embedded. Distinguishingcomputers as separate objects becomes more and more difcult,as embedded computing shows up everywhere, in toll boothsand grocery store check-out lanes, cars tire-pressure sensors, inautomated teller machineseven in toys with internal sensorsthat can react to human touch and praise.

While technology is everywhere in the built environmenttemperature control, air quality monitoring, heating, cooling,security cameras, motion sensors, and powered window blindsthere are limited standards that allow the multiple technologiesor systems to work together. Building controls rest in the handsof various business operators, engineers, and facility managers,each of whom has a partial view into the building. Informationthat could be shared, like drawings and specications, are frequently outdated, rarely maintained in sync with the building itself.

Computation is everywhere, but there remain barriers to itseffective use.

As occupants of buildings, we have days when we are too hot,too cold, have too little light or too much glare on our screens.We have no space to meet, no privacy, too much quiet, too muchnoise. We spend too much time looking for each other. We owntoo much unused space, burn lights when no one is around to use

AN EVERYWARE WORLDAdam Greeneld provides astarting point for answeringthe questions raised byubiquitous computing in hisbookEveryware , his namefor a world replete with smartand connected things. Thebook is a collection of 80theses; each is a startingpoint for an important andneeded conversation about

how we are changing theworld and how it is changingus. In the last section he asks,

How do we safeguard ourprerogatives in an everywareworld? How we answer thisquestion will signicantlydetermine how we adaptto the change initiated bysmart things.



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FOCUS ON COMFORTWhatever arguments are madeconcerning the adequacy

of our present HVAC designs,they lose strength veryquickly when the occupantsare consulted. For decades,surveys of building occupantshave shown their biggestcomplaint about theirworkplace is the lack of acomfortable thermalenvironment. More recentsurveys of ofce buildingoccupants conrm that thislong-standing complaintis unchanging. A recent BOMA

survey shows occupantsconsider the two most

important elements in aworkspace to be thermalcomfort and air quality.The same survey shows thatlack of occupant controland lack of adequate comfortconstitute the two largestcomplaints occupants haveabout their buildings.

Thomas Hartman, P.E.,The Comfort Industry:

A 21st Century Opportunity

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them, or start a meeting 10 minutes late, trying to connect to thenetwork, launch the projector, set up the video-conferencing. Welose time and money every day.

As Bill Buxton writes in Sketching User Experiences , computingproducts will be embedded in buildings that constitute ourhomes, schools, businesses, and cars. In ways that we are only starting to even imagine, much less understand, they will reshapewho does what, where, when, why, how, with whom, for how much,and for how long. Technology will affect the built environmentin ways that we cant yet imagine and in ways that may be increasingly important to who we are. Robert Kronenburg, author of Flexible:Architecture That Responds to Change , describes the built environmentas a malleable extension of who we are and how we live.

When an environment computes in a way that makes senseto us, we will have properly harnessed its potential power. We canchange the way we think about buildings, from design toconstruction, operation, use, and repurposing. A building thatcomputes can operate more efciently, create more comfortablespaces, and, most importantly, change to meet changing needs.

Toward connection and meaning

Blogs, MySpace, Facebook , Flicker, YouTube, Twitter , World of Warcraft : The widespread adoption of social technologies showsthe value people place on being able to create and share meaning,express themselves, connect with othersknown or unknown,stay informed of whats happening among their families or friendsor broader communities. The ability to control and shape theirdigital worlds has also raised peoples expectations for inuence inthe physical world, as evidenced by self-authored ring tones, customapparel, and self-designed automobile detailing.

What Frances Cairncross termed the death of distance as animpact of communications technology might be broadened tothe death of physical place. If your social networks are all online,where are you when you participate in them? If you conduct yourbusiness through e-mail, online, and by phone, where is your

INDIVIDUALS CREATEMEANINGThe International DataCorporation (IDC) reports thatby 2010 the amount ofinformation in the digitaluniverse will be 988 exabytes.This is about 18 million timesall of the information in allof the books ever written. IDCalso predicts that 70 percent

of this information will beposted by individuals forpersonal expression and use.This universe will continue toexpand at an acceleratingratewith information beingcreated, replicated, shared,and stored.

BLOGS ADOPTED QUICKLYAccording to Technorati,the number of weblogs hasdoubled every six monthsfor at least the last four years.

http://www.myspace.com/http://www.facebook.com/http://www.flickr.com/http://www.youtube.com/http://twitter.com/http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/index.xmlhttp://www.worldofwarcraft.com/index.xmlhttp://www.worldofwarcraft.com/index.xmlhttp://www.worldofwarcraft.com/index.xmlhttp://twitter.com/http://www.youtube.com/http://www.flickr.com/http://www.facebook.com/http://www.myspace.com/


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workplace? If you can choose to spend time in digital environmentswhere youre in control of your participation and contribution,or in a physical environment where you feel disconnected andpowerless, where will you choose to be?

We dont believe that were served by leaving the physicalenvironment behind, living in entirely digital communities. Peoplecant communicate completely through text and images. We derivemeaning and energy through our presence and the physicalcompany of others, feeding both our work and our play. Thismay account for the coffee-shop-as-workspace, where membersof digital communities share a communal physical space.

The digital world exists within but a completely separateexperience from the physical worldaside from power outletsand wireless connection. The question for the future is how wecan incorporate aspects of the digital world into the physicalenvironment to provide meaning, connection, and empowerment.The Media Architecture Group shows a beginning, collectingexamples from around the world of information technology merginginto and changing architecture. Within the groups archives areentire building facades that act as changeable display surfaces,interior rooms in which the walls and ceiling are screens, theeight-story-high kinetic sculpture that is the symbol of the LondonStock Exchange, and the Aquatic Center constructed in Beijing,whose exterior walls glow, in a bubble design, with color-changingLED light.

Many of the examples we see use large-scale building elementsas canvas or media display; the same technologies can be thebasis for expression by and interaction with occupants and passersby.Architecture has always been societys reection of itselfthecommunity as author. The way in which it does so can change,and is beginning to, both at the individual and community levels.

THE DRAW OF THEVIRTUAL WORLDEdward Castronova, associateprofessor in the Departmentof Telecommunications atIndiana University, has writtena book calledExodus To The Virtual World . He points to theenormous growth in onlinegames and virtual worlds likeSecond Lifeand suggests thatthe ability to disappear fromreality could have unexpectedlyprofound effects on society.

Castronova draws parallelsto the 17th century, whenthousands of people leftBritain for the New Worldwith effects on new societiesin North America but alsoon the societies left behind.According to BBC News, hesays that while some peoplewill be coloniststhe virtualfrontier opens up and off theygo and disappearotherswill just use virtual worlds

to get together with distantfamily and friends. Therewill be a group of people thatspends all their lives there,and the big question is thesize of this group.

We forget how many peoplethere are, and we have to askourselves, how exciting isthe game of life for most peopleout there? Castronova said.

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SUSTAINABLE, CHANGEABLEThe Beijing National AquaticCenter, begun in December 2003for the 2008 Olympics, is bothvisually compelling and energyefcient. The steel building iscovered with a membrane ofLED-lit bubbles. The membranealso absorbs solar radiation,enabling a 30 percent reductionin energy costs.



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Toward new economics of place

Retail stores measure the value of space by sales per square foot.Theaters know what percentage of their seats theyve lled. Inmanufacturing, square footage is part of the cost overhead equation;lean principles have allowed use of industrial space to become moreand more efcientfrequently surpassing managers expectations.

But in an economy with knowledge and service as increasingly large parts of our commercial output, were without metrics for

measuring the value of space for knowledge and service workers.Is it workstation occupancy? How, then, factor in community space, the collaboration that happens outside the ofce, travel tosuppliers, research partners, and customers?

Its not surprising, perhaps, that were without reliable metricsfor the value of knowledge worker facilities, when weve yet toagree on measures for the value of knowledge work. How muchthinking should a person do in a day? How innovative should thatthinking be? When can you quantify the value of an innovation?

How do you assign credit for the results of collaboration?Everyone agrees that organizations need to attract and

empower people who do knowledge work. We understand thatthey will collaborate with colleagues who draw paychecks fromdifferent organizations, live in different hemispheres, and may speak different languages. With available technology, they will bemobile in their work and in their leisure. Boundaries between andsocial expectations of roles, ages, places, time, genders, and workand private lives are all dissolving or moving. These workers will

take their expertise, network, and digital le boxes so they canefciently get to work any place, with a new or old team, or withina new organization.

For the individual, this change can be wonderfully empowering.From a work managers point of view, the same shifts seem as if the world is falling apart. For a vice president of real estate, itbecomes more difcult to decide to build or lease space, how much,

NEW MEASURES NEEDEDProductivity has long beenmeasured by the ratio of inputto output. This works inmanufacturing or service jobswhere the tasks are repetitiveand materials are tangible.For people who work primarilywith knowledge, how do wevalue units of informationused as inputs? How do wegauge the quality of outputs?

If the tasks are different fromday to day, how do we trackthe ratio over time?

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and for what expectations of use. Organizations evaluate trade-offs theyre unaccustomed to, choosing between investing inmobile technology or in spaces workers may or may not come to.

The future is ambiguousfor the metrics of a knowledgeeconomy and the implications for real estate to support thateconomy. Designing for change is the best approach for protectinginvestments as work strategies evolve. This is the era of pliancy:emergent structures, uid and permeable boundaries, intangibleassets, rapid evolution, and a new kind of economics.

Toward a balance of transparency and security

Security, in both political and civic terms, has become a high-prole concern in recent years. We live in a time of increasedawareness and expectations for our nation, cities, schools,and neighborhoods to be safe. Parents check on their kidsor petsin daycare via webcams. They provide teenagers cellphones with GPS so they can check on their whereabouts onthe Web. Emergency responders use the same tools to determinethe closest vehicle to the accident theyve pinpointed and thendetermine the quickest route to the location.

The industry supporting the culture of security, as well asthe technology developments feeding the industry itself, havecompounded at an accelerated rate. Wall Street investors havefocused their attention on international security companies.Technology advances in this eld span sophisticated camerasystems, articial intelligence systems for mining data, face andbehavior recognition software, all working to detect patternsin a crowd or in an urban space. According to the Chinesegovernment trade association for surveillance companies, theChinese surveillance market will expand to $43.1 billion by 2010,compared with less than $500 million in 2003. It is reportedthat under the Safe Cities program adopted by the governmentlast year, 660 cities will be adopting high-tech surveillancesystems. In North America, police agencies, jails, re stations,

NETWORKING FOR ALLFacebook has been on trackto double in size once everysix months, with 100,000 userseach day. In spite of its earlyreputation as a tool fornetworking college students,the fastest growth is among

those 25 and over. More than60 percent ofFacebookusersare not college age.

http://www.facebook.com/http://www.facebook.com/


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banks, teller machines, airports, train and subway stations,convenience stores, internet cafes, or neighborhood communitiesare not only everyday spaces, but also customers of an expandingsurveillance industry.

Countering this is a culture losing its concern with the specterof Big Brother, a pervasive new culture of transparency. Moreand more information is available about people and what they do,think, like, and dislike. Facebook has more than 64 million activeusers, posting updates to their friends and digital networks,uploading 14 million photos a day. Technorati , a blog searchengine, tracked more than 112 million blogs as of December 2007;1.4 blogs were created every second of every day. News organizationsexpand their coverage by soliciting viewers videos of accidents,weather events, and crimes.

It is easy to see the potential, even at an urban scale, of the effectsof technology for computing in space, demonstrating, in theurban landscape, a new way of understanding our environmentsand connectivity within them. In the project Participatory Urbanism, the Intel Research Lab explored how the augmentationof mobile devices with sensors for air quality, noise pollution,and UV levels, could empower citizens to super-sample theircities and environments. Data could then be plotted into GoogleEarth and a new color-coded urban zoning map would appearbased on, for example, carbon monoxide levels or air quality.Similar bottom-up approaches are now supporting exploratory data analyses examining urban crime. Initiatives such as oakland.crimespotting.org by Stamen Design, which use police reportsof crime plotted on a city map that continuously updates on theWeb, or the successful 2007 campaign The Eyes of New York,which reached out to citizens with a specic call to action if yousee something, say something indicate a shift from a centralizedcontrol model to a decentralized and participatory approach tosecurity in our urban environments.

HEAVY INVESTMENT INSECURITY TECHNOLOGYAccording to an IDC(International Data Corporation)white paper sponsored byEMC Corp, spending onsecurity-specic software isalready nearly $40 billiona year; by 2010 it will be$65 billion, or close to 5 percentof total IT spending. Add the

software, hardware, andnetworks needed to supportthose security productsand you are up over 10 percentof IT spending.

THE PROMISE 35
http://technorati.com/http://earth.google.com/http://earth.google.com/http://oakland.crimespotting.org/#dtend=2008-05-16T23:58:55-07:00&zoom=14&lat=37.806&dtstart=2008-05-09T23:58:03-07:00&lon=-122.270&types=AA,Mu,Ro,SA,DP,Na,Al,Pr,Th,VT,Va,Bu,Arhttp://oakland.crimespotting.org/#dtend=2008-05-16T23:58:55-07:00&zoom=14&lat=37.806&dtstart=2008-05-09T23:58:03-07:00&lon=-122.270&types=AA,Mu,Ro,SA,DP,Na,Al,Pr,Th,VT,Va,Bu,Arhttp://oakland.crimespotting.org/#dtend=2008-05-16T23:58:55-07:00&zoom=14&lat=37.806&dtstart=2008-05-09T23:58:03-07:00&lon=-122.270&types=AA,Mu,Ro,SA,DP,Na,Al,Pr,Th,VT,Va,Bu,Arhttp://oakland.crimespotting.org/#dtend=2008-05-16T23:58:55-07:00&zoom=14&lat=37.806&dtstart=2008-05-09T23:58:03-07:00&lon=-122.270&types=AA,Mu,Ro,SA,DP,Na,Al,Pr,Th,VT,Va,Bu,Arhttp://earth.google.com/http://earth.google.com/http://technorati.com/


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Ensuring the security of our cities, buildings, and informationsystems and networks is accepted as a fundamental businessconsideration for the design of both physical and digital spaces.Buildings judged insecure are already obsolete. Insecure informationsystems are essentially unusable. We can predict that the convergenceof the need for security, new technologies, and changing attitudesabout transparency and engagement will lead to new, empoweredrelationships with our future environments.

These ve areas of change intersect to illuminate different waysof thinking about the environment and how it is designed,built, and occupied. They have started us on a path to a sustainablebuilt environment that offers rich experience made possible by digital technologies.

EVERYONE EVERYWHEREThe Eyes of New Yorkcampaign from theMetropolitan TransportationAuthority, launched in2003, engaged the public insecurity on subways, buses,and commuter rail lines.William A. Morange, head ofsecurity for the organization,explained, It is impossiblefor the police departmentsto be everywhere and see

everything. Our passengersextend our reach andbysharing their informationmake the system safer.



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WHAT IF OURENVIRONMENTS WEREPROGRAMMABLE?

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What if our buildings could give and receive

INFORMATION?

sound,scent,color,

dimension,line,pattern,light,mass?

movement,energy use,occupancy,

temperature,humidity,light,air quality,voice volume?

Information like



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Elvis has left the building.Monica and Li-Young had a baby girl.

Information like

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What if information could be used as a design

Can the next tenantchoose the color of the room,by remote control?

Can your presentationbe broadcast by any wall?Anywhere?

MATERIAL?



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Can a room communicate?

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What if our physical

knew us as well as our digital ones do?NEIGHBORHOODS

What if we could easily share our digital lives with our physical friends, and vice versa?

What if ourbuildings let usstay connected?

Would we knowwhen an unknownperson has enteredthe building,the campus, theneighborhood?

Would buildingstell us whos there,and where?

Would wecollaborate moreeasily as webecome morefamiliar toone another?



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What if we had morechoices and controlin our environments?

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Could we design our own personal

EXPERIENCES?

Could Clarice reprogram the lightxtures in her shop by herself?

Could Jared choose lower lightin the morning, brighter light in the afternoon?

Could Ahmed cool off his cubiclewhile Cynthia warms hers?



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Couldthe marketing teamunderstand

their energy useandwork togetherto reduce it?

THE PROMISE 45


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What if buildings never became

OBSOLETE?

Could buildingsbe reprogrammed ,rather than

renovated? devalued? demolished?



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Could the same operating systembe used to program either a clinicor a performing arts center?

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What if our buildings grew

the more we used them?SMARTER

Could buildingsgather historical data to help us understand our environments better?

help us understand what they need to remain healthy and secure?

talk to the system, and the system to the parts, even as they are being constructed?



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IF OUR HABITATSWERE PROGRAMMABLE,WHAT WOULDWE ASK OF THEM?

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OUR EXPLORATIONOF PROGRAMMABILITY


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The Herman Miller Creative Ofce didnt set out to pursueprogrammable environments. We recognized the same societalforces as did many of our research colleagues in other organizations.We had some biases and beliefsspecically, that people andtheir experiences are important and often dont get the attentionthey should. That environmental sustainability is, as its now widely recognized, one of the leading issues for current generations toaddress on behalf of future generations. That the infusion of technology into every aspect of our lives both is inevitable andoffers enormous potential for good. And, of course, given thelongstanding focus of Herman Millers research and innovation,that the built environment is worthy of investment as both areection and an enabler of human endeavor.

Our charter was to identify ways to create value for all of theparties involved in built environmentsthose who build them,maintain them, manage them, furnish them, and use them. Wescouted many different areasinnovations in solid state lighting,the interaction of wearable computing with environments, designinformatics, DC electrical distribution, indoor air quality, exibleducts, and environmentally powered sensors. We generally keptthese explorations separate. But the more we explored, the morewe saw value in the connections between things that are not, inconventional practices, connected. We found possibilities like:

Using lighting technology and new textile technology as a way to dene adaptive space

Integrating lighting, audio, and display capabilities into

space-making elements Finding ways to collect building-use data and integrate the

data into renovation projects Designing single systems for utility deliverythat combine,

for example, electricity and communication for control Activating ceiling elements, generally simple covers for plenum

spaces, to create temporary dedicated-use spaces

EXPERIMENTS IN FORM

The photos on the followingsix pages documentour experimentation inadaptable formsincorporating technology.

This fabric-tube landmark(above) could be easilychanged or moved bypeople nearby. A digitallight, also relocated easily,shines directly into thetube from its top.

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CEILINGS

We experimented witharticulating ceilings thatenclosed a space fromthe top and included videodisplay screens. In anotherapproach, bafes diffusedlight and shaped the space.

Because our goal was to create new commercial value, whateverwe did needed commercial viability. Finding opportunity in thespace between highly specic construction trades and buildingoperations is easy; executing that opportunity commercially is not.All of the trades work in service of building owners and occupants,who share the same measures of neither value nor success.

The owner looks foramong other thingsthe highest rateof return on investment. Occupants have a range of values, includingcomfort, security, identity, and productivity. In the squeezebetween these two worldviews, its often the occupants experiencethat is sacriced: In commercial environments today, he cant opena window. He cant nd a light switch. Thermostats dont appearto have any effect. He wanders the corridors, hoping that thewaynding scheme will become clear. Often it doesnt, because thewarren has evolved since the design was installed, and there is noclarity to nd.

Exploring the possibilities in the intersections led us tobelieve that it was possiblebecause of converging capabilitiesand sensibilitiesto resolve the tension between two competingobjectives:

1. Enable people who use buildings to be active agents in the creation and evolution of the spaces that support their activities

2. Preserve or improve the economic equation for people who build and own buildings

And we believed that these simultaneous benefits would beaccompanied by a third:

3. Lessen the environmental impact of the built environment from construction through continuous reuse

Because the experience of space we envisioned was so importantto the concept, we built a lab and modeled some of our ideas. Wehad free rein in exploration at this point, focused by three criteria:increase exibility, increase sustainability, and hold or reduce costs.



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ROOMS

We looked for ways tocreate temporary rooms withlightweight materials that couldbe moved easily into place bypeople who need a place tomeet. Light and pattern gave thewalls more visual substance.

Realizing that space planning is normally done from the oorup, we asked what would happen if you worked from the topdown. We built variations on articulating ceilings that could denespace, even contain videoconferencing. We saw that planningfrom the top down let you use gravity instead of ghting gravityleading to lighter-weight materials for dividing space. We usedlight to create the effect of ceilings and walls. We replacedspot lighting with fully illuminated LED planes. We saw that thehodgepodge of ductwork, cabling, and wiring that nds its way into the ceiling is part of the rigidity we now accept in buildings.

We experimented extensively with new technology. We set upa PC in the lobby and made ID cards. When you enteredthe space, you provided the PC with information about yourpreferences in music, air, and light, and then swiped the ID card.As you moved through the lab, these inputs caused changes inlight levels and colors, temperature, and sounds. We used LEDlighting for waynding, including using light arrows to createpathways on the oor to help people nd books in a library.

We looked for ways that people could recongure space withno construction skills and no more than a stepladderchanginga space from library carrels to a conference room in 10 or 15 minutes.We prototyped textile walls that could be moved manually ormechanically to change a space from a lobby to a meeting room toa corridor.

These experiments in temporal spaces led us to think aboutdecision-making during the design and construction process.What if the last responsible moment to make decisions could bemoved later in the game, much closer to the actual use of a building?And what if more decisions could be reserved for users of abuildingbecause who knows better what an environment needsto do at each moment?

Through all of our experimentation, we checked back againstour objectives, accounting for each stakeholder, from the buildingowner to the user. We dened the benet to each and veried that



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WALLS

Walls made of textiles andother lightweight materialswere movable and able to bere-skinned for display in, forexample, a retail environment.

the net effect was more exibility and sustainability. We learnedmuch that set the stage for further development:

People need to interact as directly as possible with theenvironment, not with a facsimile of the environment orother intermediary. The easier it is to change, the lesspeople postpone change.

Conventional utility provision is a critical obstacle to moreexibility in environments.

While modularity has been well explored to achieve exibility in physical space, programmability has not. Placemaking components that are lightweight and easy to

move dont benet just the people who can use them, they also require fewer resources than conventional construction.

Environments can have both physical and digital dimensionslike much in the rest of our lives.

Everyone benets from delaying the last responsible momentfor space-design decision-making as long as possible.

Having gotten this far in describing our vision, we focusedon developing a platform for programmability, one that wouldbring exibility to utilities that currently constrain adaptability and provide a network for communication and data gatheringthroughout an environment.



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DIGITAL CONTROLSWhen theyre digital, controlscan be easily associatedor reassociated with specicxtures, without rewiring.

ADAPTABLECONFERENCE ROOMOne large room can bechanged in minutes into two,each with its own scenesettings for multiple uses.

OCCUPANT COMFORTUnderoor air handlingand diffuser controlsfacilitate ne-tuningby users of air ow andtemperature.



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The infrastructure developed with the future vision of a program-mable environment in mind became Convia, rst available fromHerman Miller in 2007. Convia is designed for inclusiveness andintegration: Its platform supports multiple widely used protocolsto enable evolution to keep pace with our learning. All of thecomponents and capabilities for the programmable environmentmust evolve in the same way that environments will adaptwith use, with change, in community with the people who build,manage, and inhabit buildings.

A PLATFORM TO BUILD ON

AN INTEGRATED APPROACHAs a platform for theprogrammable environment,the Convia system enablesa exible and integratedapproach to both utilitydelivery and control.

TRADITIONALINCREMENTAL/DISPARATE SYSTEMS

CONVIAINTEGRATED SYSTEMS

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An intelligent power delivery platform, integrating a com-munication network with a modular electrical system, providesthe foundation to build upon. Microcontrollers distributeintelligence throughout the electrical infrastructure, creating anetwork of power nodes and zones that can be programmed torespond to changing needs in the environment. Lighting controls,instead of being embedded in the existing electrical infrastructure,are separate from the power delivery system and thus able to be easily changed. Components connected to the Convia system are able tocommunicate with any other component connected to the system.

The power delivery platform has cost-reduction and environ-mental benets. As a modular system, it can be installed in lesstime than conventional utility wiring, with better coordinationamong construction trades and fewer change orders duringthe project. When installed, it sets the stage for effective energy managementand adapting as energy requirements change.When a larger-scale change is needed, the electrical infrastructurecan be recongured quickly and easily; all components can bereused. This not only reduces the cost of change, it eliminatesdumpsters lled with conventional but no longer appropriatewires and cables.

People can control objects in a Convia environment throughtwo interfaces. The rst is the simplest: a handheld, wireless,two-button wand. You can use it to link any light or receptacle ora series of them, with any sensor or switch. Aim the wand at alight, and then at a switch, and the association is made instantly.Aim the wand at a second light, and that switch will also operatethat light. This level of simplicity enables people to participate inchanging their environments.

INDIVIDUAL COMFORTArt, a creative director fora global news magazine, workslong days and nights. Hedoesnt want to waste his timeddling for comfort and hasprogrammed his ofce to shiftfrom day to night by settingscenes. (1) By day he hosts aconstant stream of intense,stand-up meetings witheditors, photographers, anddesigners, poring over workand proofs. By night, he worksat his desk, catching up oncorrespondence and preparingfor the next days meetings.(2) Blinds are drawn by day tocontrol light color and intensity,but open at night for the view.(3) His glass wall is opaqueby day for privacy andtransparent at night. (4) Hekeeps the ofce cool whenpeople will share his space andwarmer when hes alone.



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MORE ABOUTTHE CONVIA PLATFORMFor more information aboutthe Convia infrastructure andhow it can contributeto LEED certication, go towww.HMConvia.com.

The parts of the Convia environment are connectednodes ona networkand they are all providers and receivers of informationas well as physical objects. You can congure and recongure therelationships between controlling and controlled componentsand building subsystems and provide rudimentary brainsin theform of sensorsto any component you would like to includeas a node on your network. Sensors can respond to many kinds of inputlight, motion, force, chemistryto operate or report onone or a series of components. The sun rising and shining througha window can turn lights off and adjust the heat. A motion-detectingsensor can turn lights on, run a wall display, issue ambient soundor scent, trigger a fountain, report on room occupancy, or chairoccupancy, or perform all of these in the morning and a differentseries in the afternoon. Once components are part of the network, you can dene and store associations between them.

And any node on the network also provides information abouthow often its used, what commands it has executed, and otherfactors so that the whole environment, the building zones, and scenesthemselves can continuously evolve.

TOOLS FOR THE PROGRAMMABLE DESIGN MEDIUM

We believe these components, reected in the Convia platform, are required to createa programmable environment:

A communication network for things Easy connectivity for things to the network Simple communication by people with things Intuitive rules for interacting with the space Immediacy of results Means to link interdependent devices and save preferred settings for scene control Edit Undo recovery from mistakes Storage for data from the environment

Analysis tools to understand the data A standard structural interface that is part of the architecture and infrastructure

of the interior space Simple mechanical attachment for physical objects to the structural interface,

requiring only common hand tools

FIRST FINDINGS ONENERGY SAVINGSA study conducted by TheWeidt Group, an independentengineering consultant forhigh performance buildings,found that ofces using theConvia system can gain upto 30 percent in annual energysavings as compared to theASHRAE standard 90.1-2004,the current energy benchmarkfor buildings.

Communities throughoutthe state of California haveimplemented stringentbuilding codes to meetenergy guidelines issued bythe California EnergyCommission. Southern CaliforniaEdison is one of the largestelectric utilities in the UnitedStates and an early adopterof the Convia infrastructure,a technology they are installingin an existing ofce building,

testing an ofce of the futureconcept.

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A platform in use

As a foundation, Convia demonstrates the potential of program-mability and enables us to learn what living consciously withdigital and physical aspects of environments offers that wehavent yet considered. Convia is in use at the groups headquarters,outside Chicago, where the inhabitants are full participants.This is how, given development to date, the capabilities play outthroughout the day:

When the rst employee arrives at the ofce the alarm systemrecognizes her and deactivates. Each employee arrives and iswelcomed according to preferences:

Jackies monitor comes on, and lights overhead come onhalf-way. The lights will come to full power later in the day,when Jackie needs help to stay alert.

Matt heads into the break room; the lights come on in responseto a sensor. (The sensor has been moved a few times, because

at rst it triggered when people went by but not into theroom.) He grabs a cup of coffee, which is already brewed, andheads to his workstation. Matt is sensitive to computer-screenglare: As he sits down, the adjacent shades lower and theoverhead lights stay off.

Randys ofce lights turn on full, his digital frame displayspictures from his European vacation, and the Rolling Stoneskick in on the sound system. Because the sunrise is especially bright, the shades lower; usually, Randy enjoys the sun.

The rst thing on Janes agenda is conducting a webinar. Inthe conference room, she pushes the button for the webinarsceneone of a number of preset combinations of room features.The technology powers up, the shades lower, and the digital LCDscreen displays the presentation. John rushes in, claiming heneeds the conference room. Short on time before the webinar, Janechooses not to argue, but to push the button for the room to



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INDIVIDUALS IN CONTROLThe programmable environmentenables individuals to controltheir environments rather thanbeing controlled by them.

PRESSURE FROM STATIC ENVIRONMENT

HARMONY WITH PROGRAMMABLE ENVIRONMENT

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VARIETY OF USEFor Angie, a real estatedeveloper, time is money.For every minute a spacein one of her buildings sitsunoccupied, revenue drops.Programmability has helpedher boost prots by lettingher change in a day whatused to take weeks ofplanning and construction,even in some of the olderbuildings she owns downtown.Here Angie works with hertenants to prepare the samespace for two very differentuses rst a city communitycollege, then a health clinic.Using a stepladder andsimple hand tools, she can(1) change out the lightsand program special displayequipment, (2) repositionoccupancy sensors tohelp tenants understandtheir use of space, and

(3) establish user-denedrules for securing the space.

become two instead of one. The automated wall partitions moveinto place, the light switches respond accordingly, and the HVACsystem creates two zones instead of one.

At lunchtime, the caf lights and music come on, encouragingthe team to gather to socialize, relax, and set the stage for theafternoons collaboration. Jane heads out for a run, knowing thatshe can adjust the HVAC in her workstation for an hour or soafterward while she cools down.

Throughout the day, the ambient light adjusts in responseto natural sunlight in the space; public areas like restrooms arelighted only when occupied. Convia reporting shows that theenergy use is at or below ASHRAE 2004 codes 90 percent of thetime, an improvement over last quarters 85 percent. The teamis invested in this performance, because they can get ongoinginformation about their performance to energy goals andimmediate feedback about whats working and whats not.

The day winds down. The team member who thinks hes lastout of the building hits the shut-down scene button at the frontdoor, intending to shut down lighting and electrical loads andactivate the alarm system. Fortunately, the occupancy sensor inScotts workstation overrides the building-wide shut-down,because the quiet programmer is still at work.

It is easy to argue that people will prefer environments thatmake them more comfortable. The Convia platform was designedto give people control over their environments and the toolsto redesign and program environments to suit their needs foradaptability, comfort, and convenience. And environments builton a programmable infrastructure will be more valuableto builders and ownersvastly reducing the cost and waste of construction, remodeling, operation, and obsolescence.



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ACHIEVING THE PROMISEOF PROGRAMMABILITY



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Programmability offers a radical reinvention, a new design mediumwith a new result. Instead of a building, complete and xedin time, subject to renovation or demolition when its purpose isno longer relevant, the result is a system designed to evolve ininteraction with the people who use the building. A programmableenvironment redraws the boundaries of architecture, interior design,and facility management. As a new medium, programmability requires new practices, a merging of experience design, interiordesign, architecture, system design, and engineering. And thealways-building environment, as opposed to the built environment,embraces users of the building as co-designers of the space.

To achieve programmable environments, we think about a digitalas well as a physical dimension of space. The digital dimensionprovides a common language for objects within the space tocommunicate with each other, for people to communicate withobjects, for a certain level of security between objects. It providesthe means for data to be collected from objects in the space, andfor objects to be told how to behave.

The digital dimension means that we think about the physicaldimension differently. Instead of having a monolithic electricalsystem, for example, we need to think about how an electricalsystem can become modular, simple, and integrated with othersystems. Each light xture can become a node on the network thatthe building becomes. Instead of a chair being only a chair, a chaircan carry a sensor and become another node on the network,providing information about whether and how a space is used.

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Every design project, whether new construction, renovation,or redesign of an existing space, has unique goals andpriorities. For a nonprot hospital, the highest priority might be the quality of patient care. For a corporate head-quarters, trade-offs may be made for optimal presentationof brand attributes. For a call center, perhaps processefciency, minimizing turnover, or cost-effective operationis the highest priority. Programmability allowsin fact,requiresthe design team to think beyond the currentexplicit program requirements to design on a larger canvas:the next use of the environment and then the use beyondthat. Instead of designing a static product that is completein one moment and becoming obsolete the next, thedesigner is creating a system that will continuously evolve.

Four principles specic to the programmable environ-ment, interrelated and interdependent, are the basis forachieving this greater impact:

Maximizing the capacity for adaptation is the focusof programmable design.

The time to effect change is ideally zero.

Design is collaborative and includes people who inhabita space as co-designers.

Everything is recognized as both physical and digital.

Lets look at each of these principles in detail.

CREATING THE PROGRAMMABLE ENVIRONMENT

SHARING CONTROLSPEEDS ADAPTATIONWidely distributed controlenhances the degree andspeed of adaptability, oneof the benets of engagingoccupants in interactingwith the environment.



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CONTROL ATDIFFERENT LEVELSA hierarchy of access andcontrol allows the buildingmanager to operate at thebuilding-wide scale, whilegroups and individualsaffect the areas they use.



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DESIGNED FOR CHANGEWhen a facility is designedto change, the time investmentrequired is minimal.

Interacting with environments will always be governed by rules, whether established by regulation, safety considerations,social norms, or cultures of organizations. Programmableenvironments dont change that fact, but they will change the rules.

Three simple rules serve as the starting point for designing thesocial and technical system of the programmable environment:

The control given to people using the environment today will not limit the interests of the people using the environment

in the future.The design and implementation of the system enables ahierarchy of priorities and constraints. (For example,a person can change the temperature of his ofce, but notabove 72 degrees.)

The tools provided to interact with the space are simpleand intuitive.

Incorporating adaptability into an environment requires

revisiting some long-held notions about space. Boundaries,entryways, and passageways assumed to be permanent will needto be considered in new ways to enable future adaptability. Insteadof conventional private areas, we may consider lightweight, easily movable structures for temporary and semi-permanent spacedivision. Finally, new rules governing the actions of all who engage indesign and change activities must be conceived and communicated.



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Pursuing zero-time change

The ability of a programmable environment to respond quicklysometimes immediatelyto the desired next state is critical toits ability to adapt. The longer it takes for a change to be made,the more its postponed by the person who needs it. The longerits put off, the more people adapt to the inconvenience of the current state, and the further out of touch with the need thecurrent state becomes.

If we plan for instant change, where do we build walls? Wheredo we place light xtures and switches, diffusers and ducts? Whenthe design and its use are inseparable, the environment becomesan improvisational production, one in which the elements of thespace itself join the people as actors responding to the next cue.Performance in real time is the measure of success.

If the environment can respond immediatelyand simplyto a change in needs, the people using the space, and even thepeople designing the space, can experiment in real time in the

space itself. The changes that work will last. Changes that dontwork can be quickly undone and something else tried.

The ability to implement change quickly implies, nally, thatdecisions in the construction process can be made at the lastpossible momentkeeping options open until we have the mostor most current information. We see potential for eliminatingwaste and inefciencyand associated environmental impactin the construction process. Integrating digital technology intobuilding materials, the availability of modular building components,

and improvements in design informatics all imply a constructionprocess that is more like a continuous ow (like lean manufacturing)of building material into the form of a building, rather than thestaging of materials processed by batch into a structure.



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People who inhabit a space are its co-designers

Weve introduced the idea that the programmable environmentis a design medium. For that to be meaningful, people whoinhabit and use a space need to participate in design activities.Robert Kronenburg, who has written often on mobile andportable architecture, elaborates on this idea:

Flexible architecture requires an attitude to design thatintegrates the requirements of the present with the

possibility to adapt to changing situations in the future.It is about allowing future users and designers, who willknow their own situation best, the leeway to make appropriatedecisions when they are needed. This can take the form of spaces and elements that are easily manipulated and alteredon a day-to-day basis, or the capacity to be changedfundamentally with minimal disruption and expense ascircumstances develop over a longer period. This does notmean that architects now need to focus on designingloose-tting, non-dedicated environments without character.Instead the ambition should be to create buildings thathave integrated, carefully devised systems that are capable of responding to new and varied situations. This is architecturethat needs designers skills more than ever, not to createa product that is perfect on delivery (but is destined forcompromise in the future) but one that is capable of takingadvantage of other contributors to the buildings operation(most importantly the users) during its future lifetime.

The programmable environment is an expression of thisattitude. Kronenburg makes clear the need for full and ongoingcollaboration between designers and building users throughout



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the life of the building. Their responsibilitytogether, as designersand usersis to satisfy current needs and to maintain a designmedium that will adapt over time to changing needs of boththe organization and the inhabitants of the environment. Such acollaboration is so critical that we consider users to be co-designersnot trained in design, but full participants in design activities.

Programmable environments invite the inhabitant into thecontrol dialog of the building. Simple-to-use interfaces and simplerules for change are prerequisite for user participation. Co-designersmust have the freedom to explore and the security to correctmistakes. Providing this invitation to users is a signicant challengeto designers. The wand developed for Convia, with its simplerules for associating smart things, is one expression of meetingthe challenge.

The rst goal of collaborative design activities is always theadaptation of a space to its current purpose. A broader and noless important goal is ensuring future participation of unknowndesigners and co-designers whose purposes are also unknown.Nature provides the clues for meeting the second goalvariety.

As experiences are more varied and rich, people using thespace will be more engaged, and more information will beexchanged on multiple dimensions: Whats happening in aworkstation, a team, a oor, an entire building? Informationteaches people quickly what works and what doesnt, enablingfaster adaptation on a perpetually larger scale. Programmableenvironments provide opportunities for creating variety,and an intelligent infrastructure is part of making this possible.



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A DIVERSE DESIGN TEAMCreating a programmableenvironment requires a morediverse cross-functionaldesign team, which includesthe user as a co-designer.



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Recognize everything as both physical and digital

What does it mean when something has digital properties as wellas its physical properties? And what do we have to do differently as a result? Photo-sensor-based dimming control provides oneexample. These systems sense the level of illumination in a spaceand adjust it to a predetermined level. Their benets are welldocumented: energy savings, longer calendar life for lamps, anduser comfort. Despite these benets and almost 20 years on the

market, they are used in less than 5 percent of commercialbuildings. Barriers to their adoption include purchase cost, a lackof evidence of reliability and cost-effectiveness, system complexity,and the need for the system to be integrated into the buildingdesign. Lack of understanding of digital properties plays a role ineach of these barriers, but in particular in the last two.

Part of the complexity of systems like that one is that beingdigital means the potential to be interconnected; while the benetsare generally acknowledged, connectivity increases complexity

and requires thoughtful integration. The role of window blindsin lighting control illustrates this interconnectedness. Blindsblock daylight to reduce glare or excess direct light. When blindsare closed, more energy is needed for electric illumination.But sometimes blinds are left closed simply because no one opensthemclearly diminishing the energy-savings effectivenessintended for the system.

Recognizing the digital properties of each element and thinkingthrough the implications of connectivity would lead to a system

in which the blinds, lights, and light sensors communicated withone another (an example of what is now known as physicalcomputing). This is simple for one window, but at the scale of acommercial building, the complexity is magnied. The digitalproperties are the same, regardless of the scale; the problem is notwith the property but with our ability to use it properly.



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Being digital also means having a presence beyond physicality.Drawings, blueprints, records of use, instructions for use,warranties, and user reviews are easily accessible parts of things.All of this data and information can either increase or reducecomplexitydepending on how well we understand and use it.

Complex and complicated systems are problematic for usersonly when the complexity or complication is visible. The dimmingcontrol for lighting becomes an acute problem when the userwho needs higher illumination cant gure out how to get it.A programmable environment needs to provide the occupant asimple interfaceas intuitive as a screwdriver or a hammerto the digital properties of physical things.

As more and more things are built with digital properties,tools that manipulate those properties become critical. Thisis especially true in buildings where the expertise of theoccupantsand future occupantscannot be anticipated.In a programmable environment, digital character becomesas important a design consideration as the physicality of an object or the space.



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STATIC ENVIRONMENTDISCONNECT BETWEEN ENVIRONMENT AND USER NEEDS

PROGRAMMABLE ENVIRONMENTKEEPING PACE WITH CHANGING NEEDS

A CLOSER MATCH TO USER NEEDSIn the traditional model, anenvironment grows furtherand further disconnectedfrom the needs of the peoplewho use it, until a majorrenovation is completed for atemporary improvement in

alignment. In the programmableenvironment, ongoing changesin the environment enable itto more closely match currentuser needs throughout thebuilding life cycle.



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Some of us remember when a telephone was only a telephone.A whole generation, however, expects the telephone to also be acamera, an answering machine, an address book, a sender andreceiver of text messages or e-mails, a web browser, and a photoalbum. We expect a similar explosion of expectations aboutwhats possible from an environment.

At minimum, programmability should free people from havingto think about things that really ought to be able to think forthemselves. Next, it should allow people to easily relocate thingslike light xtures, light switches, receptacles, and projectors.To make that more powerful, people should have an easy andintuitive way to make and break control relationships betweenthings like thermostats and diffusers, lights and switches, windowblinds and light sensors, space dividers and lighting controls.And what they do to change and control those elements shouldbe understood by the building at large, so that the manager candetermine whether larger-scale changes are needed.

People who experience and can participate in the ongoingdesign of their environments will, we believe, be more investedin their spaces. They will feel a sense of ownership; they will beginto explore ways in which environments can do more to expresstheir personalities, to support their interactions with others, toenrich their work. Environments, after all, are places for people tocome togetherto transact business, to politick, to entertain oneanother, educate one another, build community. The technology intrinsic to the programmable environment has the potentialto enhance this variety of human encounters in interior spaces.

The person responsible for managing a facility or buildinggains insight and control; when an environment is programmable,all of its parts and systems operate as one network rather thanindividual components. Data on building parameters like energy utilization, use and occupancy, and the frequency of change,combined with tools for analysis and reporting, give the managertools to reduce costs and increase the performance of the buildingfor the people who use it.

LIVING IN THE PROGRAMMABLE ENVIRONMENT

SWARMING BUILDINGELEMENTSIn the Digital Revolutionarchitecture becomes a gameplayed by its users. And notonly architecture will be subjectto the forces of real-timecalculation. Planning,construction, interior design,and landscape design arealso ready to be developed asreal-time games. During thedesign process the game isdesigned by the architectand played by all partiesinvolved. During the life cycleof the building and the builtenvironment, the game is playedby their users, by the visitors,and by the built environmentitself. By playing the game theparticipants set the parameters.Each actor triggers an array ofsensors writing the new datainto a database, from where thebuilding picks up the new data

and starts reconguring itself,in shape, in content, or in bothshape and content.The buildingelements consist of numerouscooperating programmableelements, behaving like a swarm.The building elements willshow ocking behavior, alwayskeeping an eye on theneighboring actor and alwaysready to act and react.

Introduction to Game Set and Match, an international and

interdisciplinary conference sponsored by Delft University

of Technology and directed by Kas Oosterhuis



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Because in a well-designed programmable environment thelocation, programming, relocation, and reprogramming of sensorsis a simple, everyday activity, the manager can ne-tune theinformation that shes receiving as the use of the building changes.And by having a multi-dimensional picture, through historicaldata, of the effect of changes made over time, the manager cancontinuously experiment, learn, and apply that learning to theoperation of the environment.

The payoff from this kind of approach is enormous, and bothshort- and long-term. In the short-term, the people using thebuilding have more controlwhether theyre concentrating ina workstation, meeting in an auditorium, or trying to reduceenergy consumption across an entire campus. In the long-term,the building can change and adapt to a new purpose for anew group of people, reducing their costs and eliminatingthe environmental impact of a conventional renovation orreconstruction. And in between, the programmable buildingeasily accommodates a reorganized department, a repurposedroom, or three tenants instead of two. The result is sustainabilityof purpose and usefulness for both the people currently usinga building and the owner of the building over a longer term.

STATIC ENVIRONMENT

PROGRAMMABLE ENVIRONMENT

DESIGN BECOMESCONTINUOUSIn the programmableenvironment, design isan ongoing operation.



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In 1968, Robert Propst and the Herman Miller Research Corporationbrought systems thinking to furnishing commercial ofces. To addressthe rapidly rising demand for ofce space fueled by the developingcomputer industry and the emergent information economy, they pro

always_building a sustainable environment

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