Will smart buildings reduce future demand for office space?
by James A. Bacon
I had one overriding question when I came to the Niagara Summit: Will the new investment driven by cutting-edge Building Automation technology have an influence upon human settlement patterns? More specifically, will the technology of smart buildings make existing commercial buildings so obsolete that it will make sense to tear them down and start over, thus opening up the possibility of reconfiguring dysfunctional human settlement patterns?
That was my hope. But the answer, it appears, is, “No.”
Building automation technology will drive down the cost of owning and operating commercial buildings. And those savings will drive a wave of building retrofits. Thanks to the ability of sensors, controllers and other devices to communicate by wireless, however, the retrofits need not require tearing out a lot of walls. I saw no indication that it would make sense, even on the economic margin, to tear down buildings and start over.
The only influence I can discern — and it was never discussed at this conference — is a very indirect one. One thing that Smart Buildings can do is record office occupancy for the purpose of turning out lights and adjusting temperatures for empty offices. The ability to measure occupancy provides valuable information to the building owner/tenant. Many offices are infrequently occupied, with employees calling on customers, attending conferences, telecommuting, vacationing or conducting business on the road. Questioning the idea that every person requires his or her own dedicated office, many companies are sloughing off unneeded space.
A major barrier to rationalizing office space has been the ability to inexpensively and accurately measure occupancy. If sensors are placed in individual offices in order to regulate energy efficiency, there is minimal additional cost to ascertaining how many offices remain empty. Thus, indirectly, building automation may drive forward the rationalization of office space and dampen the need for new commercial buildings.
If that rationalization occurs — and there are indications that it is occurring, though slowly — it could dramatically change the pattern and density of growth. Combined with a dearth of retail development (as households throttle back their consumption and more shopping occurs online), a slowdown in commercial construction could alter traditional commercial-residential ratios.
Some new mix of development seems inevitable, although what new shape it may take is still foggy. The development paradigm that dominated the U.S. during the six-decade era of Mass OverConsumption is dissolving, and we need to begin thinking about what comes next in order to better prepare for it.
