Northwestern Mutual recently completed a headquarters project that uses built spaces to support diversity and inclusion among people with different work styles, disabilities, generational differences, genders, and body shapes. Architects followed the principles of universal design, and facilities designers used innovative furniture and varied spaces to accommodate differences among employees and to increase user engagement and productivity.

Building automation systems (BAS), computerized maintenance management systems, data analytics software, and human motion modeling software are being reimagined to allow people to safely occupy their workspaces during the COVID-19 pandemic, by collecting data in new ways and sharing it like never before. Data can be made available on dashboards and mobile devices to inform the countless decisions occupants make in the course of their workday—including choosing a route to their office, an elevator, a desk, or a restroom—all with the lens of maintaining social distances and maximizing sanitation.

Change is inevitable over the life of a research facility, but modular design and careful attention to utilities—for both adaptability and flexibility—can minimize disruptions and future-proof infrastructure. Enrollment growth at major research institutions is outpacing available space to support the research activities. In addition, programs and buildings are now more technically complex than those built decades ago, with unique requirements, such as animal facilities, cage-washing capability, greenhouse space, and open laboratories. “We are not designing every single space, every single outlet, for a single investigator,” says Timothy Reynolds, a principal with TreanorHL Science & Technology. “We are designing it for investigators that are going to be here 25 years from now. We don’t want to go down the road to find that the facilities that we design today, that are still in operation in 50 years, can’t be modified.” These principles are even more important now, given the challenges university faculty members, staff, and students face in the current pandemic. The use of modular planning, moveable furniture systems and laboratory casework, and flexible infrastructure can allow for the rapid changes called for today. A space in one of TreanorHL’s recent facilities, for example, has been converted to a sterile compounding lab to produce a solution for COVID-19 testing.

Communities, corporations, and educational institutions are drafting plans to reopen during the COVID-19 pandemic, employing policies around personal protective equipment; keeping a 6-foot distance from co-workers, peers, and clients; and reconfiguring their physical spaces. Another potential mitigation strategy is to adjust a facility’s mechanical system to better protect the occupants, though that should not be considered the primary solution, cautions Michael Walsh, PE, LEED AP, senior mechanical engineer and principal at R.G. Vanderweil Engineers, LLP. “There’s no silver bullet,” he says.

Intelligent building solutions that combine building automation systems (BAS), computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS), the Internet of Things (IoT), smart building technologies, and data analytics software are being used to reduce energy costs, optimize operations, enhance user experience, and, most recently, adhere to standards established in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. As these technologies and platforms converge, more buildings and campuses are leveraging systems integration to optimize resource management, establish proactive maintenance programs, automate processes, and increase productivity.