International. Currently, there are approximately three billion people locked up worldwide and key shopping malls in Asia, Europe and North America are at the centre of the crisis. Despite some overly optimistic comments from world leaders, no one knows how long these measures will have to be implemented as global and national health authorities continue to assess the rapidly evolving situation.
Eventually, however, the political tug-of-war between health and the economy will begin to change as pressure from collapsing markets forces world leaders to ease lockdown measures, likely against more prudent health advice. To prevent a second wave of coronavirus cases, politicians will push policies that maintain some form of social distancing while getting people back to work, targeting key industries and suggesting various measures to allow work and prevent further spread of the virus. At that point, Occupancy Analytics will provide smart buildings with huge advantages over traditional buildings as facilities are put back up and running as soon as possible.
Occupancy analysis has emerged with the smart building over the past decade driven by the use case of space utilization. Optimize workplace floor space without affecting the health, comfort, or productivity of employees. By collecting data from sensors and other sources, occupancy analysis helps buildings understand how occupants use different spaces to redesign the office for greater space efficiency. This has inevitably led to a growing trend of densification as commercial buildings around the world try to do more with less space.
"From 2009 to 2019, most companies adopted office densification, consistently allocating fewer square feet per employee each year after the Recession. Office densities around the world have continued to rise as occupancy costs rise and flexible working allows for a reduction in space per person," explains our recent Occupancy Analysis Report. With office densification rates increasing around the world, the balance between shrinking space and occupants' desire for more desk and shared space is tricky."
The incredible and unforeseen way 2020 has unfolded has abruptly disrupted this trend, sending occupancy rates to zero in most commercial real estate. While offices are empty, occupancy analysis can do little, but as the economy brings us back to our offices (perhaps prematurely from a health perspective), occupancy analysis can make us safer. In a post-lockdown world, occupancy analysis still maximizes the number of people in a space without affecting health, comfort, or productivity, but health has a new metric: social distancing.
A post-closure occupancy analysis system will focus on keeping us separate. By understanding the movement of people around a building, an occupancy analysis system can calculate the maximum number of people who should be in each area, sending alerts to building operators or occupants when a space approaches its socially distance-based capacity. By tracking the movement of people in this new reality, systems can gradually find more and more ways to introduce additional workers while maintaining proper social distance.
"Navigating through the plethora of use cases in the smart building landscape is not easy. Although technology is rapidly evolving and offering a plethora of smart building solutions, there is no single path on how to transform an office into a more human-centric building. There is no predefined sequence of measurements to take. The only correct way is individual customization," explains our new report: occupancy analysis and location-based services in the building.
Location-based indoor platforms, which allow building managers to locate objects and people inside buildings, could be used to ensure people are kept at a safe distance from each other. In combination with navigation, scheduling and analysis, indoor positioning systems can allow users to view and share their location in relation to workstations, meeting rooms or other occupants in real time. While the range of workplace applications that have emerged in recent years can facilitate communication without risk of infection between all the people in a building.
"Through the latest IoT technologies, our smart commercial buildings promise to improve the health, well-being and safety of their occupants like never before. However, as Europe enters lockdown, most of the continent's commercial real estate is left empty, offering few answers to the new dangers brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic," we wrote in a recent article titled: "Covid-19 lockdown leaves smart buildings empty to reflect on their failures." While we can excuse the technology for not being as prepared as the humans who created it, this strange reality we find ourselves living in poses a new challenge for the smart construction industry to adapt its intelligence."
Buildings are like a species that feeds on the activity that occurs within their walls, during the last decade smart buildings have thrived by using various tools to increase productivity within the limits of the health and well-being of the occupants. As lockdown measures eventually begin to ease, our buildings will find themselves in a new environment, one with boundaries that seek to keep occupants separate, allowing for gradually increasing the possibility of contact in line with government health policies as the coronavirus situation improves in cities and regions around the world.
"It's not the strongest species that survives, nor the most intelligent, it's the one that adapts most to change," said Charles Darwin, father of the theory of evolution. It will not be the "bigger" or "smarter" buildings that survive the challenges of the future, but the buildings that best adapt to the new boundaries and opportunities in the post-closure environment. Of all the tools in the smart building toolbox, the ones that can offer the best view of people and biology at the heart of this crisis will present the best solutions. Occupancy analysis and indoor location-based services will be a key platform for buildings to adapt to the new reality.
Source: memoori.
