Technology Innovation in Today’s Environment

As we navigate through the current pandemic, businesses must stay at the forefront of technology trends to maintain a safe and healthy workplace for their employees and visitors.

For nearly four decades, Buro Happold has been a leader in technology innovations. Our team has played various key roles in the construction industry, ranging from design to trusted advisor. Our global reach and deep relationships with manufacturers, vendors, and integrators have allowed us to keep up with emerging technology trends. 

With the circumstances today, we are focusing on our specialisms to help keep people safe and healthy. Please see below to discover how we can help your communities.

Our capabilities and services to assist technology teams in developing a return to work strategy include:

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• Distance learning, virtual boardrooms, creating the new hybrid environments
• Touchless systems
• Video automation, keeping operators safe
• People count, both in and out of your facility
• People flow modelling for minimized social contact and contact tracing
• Portable unified communication systems
• Digital signage, displaying new office policy changes
• Body temperature and facial recognition systems with and without masks
• Home office consultancy, solutions for technology, audio, video and lighting
• Systems and network monitoring

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Our Services

1. Technology Audits

Buro Happold has experience conducting audits throughout campuses and remote locations. Combined with a deep understanding of technology and audio-video ecosystems, Buro Happold can advise on equipment and workflow to meet the CDC’s requirements for social distancing in the workplace. Audits can also be conducted to evaluate networks to advise on design improvements that further enhance the remote workforce experience and overall efficiency.

2. Creating Touchless Environments

Create touchless environments with the help of Buro Happold technology consultants. In the past weeks, many have begun to move to touchless processes. The office will now have to join this movement to stay in compliance with CDC requirements.

Buro Happold is well-versed in evaluating technology ecosystems to make the best recommendations to create new safe touchless environments. Today’s technology manufacturers have accelerated their process and designs to meet these new and challenging requirements. There is a lot to know and understand about how to implement these new products. Buro Happold has extensive manufacturer and vendor relationships and is able to assist in the complex decision-making process.

One example of employing this technology is on our Monroe Blocks project in Detroit, MI, a nearly 1,000,000ft2 mixed-use development featuring five buildings. Buro Happold worked with the client and internal stakeholders, made up of end users and hardware providers, to arrive at a proximity based solution that allows for touchless access control to the development.

3. Remote Monitoring and Support

Buro Happold can assist technology managers in selecting new tools for the remote support of all technologies from the office or the home office. Remote monitoring and software add a layer of intelligence to turn an organization into a high-performance enterprise. Tools can include scheduling, remote help desk, global device monitoring, data collection and reporting with analytics.

For instance, on the Morphosis Studio building in Culver City, CA, Buro Happold worked with Morphosis architects to develop a ventilation strategy that incorporated Monodraught® Windcatchers – the first ever installed in the US – into the roof. These are louvered steel boxes containing interior cross blades that both draw cool air into the building and extract hot air out.

A digital sensor controls the windcatchers during the day to maintain comfortable interior temperatures, and at night the louvers are fully opened so that cool air can flood in and freshen the space ready for the next day.

4. People Flow Modelling

Buro Happold’s analytics team can optimize the design and operational planning of buildings. We understand how people behave and interact with spaces, using this understanding to optimize layouts, circulation capacities, wayfinding, logistics and operational strategies. By assessing, modelling and predicting the way in which people interact with buildings and spaces, we know how to get the most from diverse environments. At the core of our expertise is the science of moving dots backed by decades of research, vast amounts of behavior data and in-house development of sophisticated BIM-integrated modelling tools.

One example of how we’ve intergrated this technology for our clients is at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Using our ‘People Flow’ modeling has provided a data rich, experiential picture of how people move through the museum, what they look at and how they feel. Critically, our program provides feedback on how different spatial and environmental factors affect the user experience. The wealth of data and experiences that are collected are then communicated through appropriate means. These methodologies can be applied in today’s climate of Covid-19 to assist is the safety and wellbeing of all.