Reforming Workscapes

Technical, structural and facility experts of the industry gathered around to shed light on how technology is transforming the landscape of facilities.

- Rashmi Naicker

There’s more to architecture and design than creating functional spaces – it is about understanding the operations, functions and ensuing processes of the structure. The architecture of contemporary workspaces, with its emphasis on efficiency and clarity in design, at times, fail to address the aftermath of a ‘handover’. With the constantly changing ecosystem within an office building, technology contributes as the driving force behind all operations. Many a times, the building is not flexible enough to allow adoption of new technology or innovation that involve a broad transformation. Therefore, as building systems become more complex, inputs from the facility manager greatly influence factors such as carbon footprint, maintainability, sustainability and flexibility. Some of the great minds of the industry came together to share their thoughts on how workspace creation is addressed by different functional groups and how ‘synergy between various stakeholders’ is the foundation of any building design and management as a whole.

Brigadier Harpreet S Kaura, VP, National Administration, KPMG, points out, “It is clear that buildings are continuously evolving, thanks to technology. Architects, consultants, contractors and facility managers should be on one table from the initial days of the project. For facility managers, who deal with operations throughout the lifecycle of the building, their inputs are important in decision-making processes, especially when it comes to adopting the right systems and technology such as building management systems, etc. Further, a cost benefit analysis must be carried out to get stakeholders to agree to these applications.”