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Pervasive computing technologies
promise to revolutionize
the way people use buildings—and how architects design
them
by Jacqueline Emigh
I Imagine, if you will, an office space dotted with collaboration-
oriented cubicles, each one digitally controlled by its occupant.
Glancing across the office, you see rows of color-coded status
lights above the cubes, indicating whether its occupant is
in or out—and if in, busy or available. Within each cube
is a large touch- sensitive screen, which acts as the primary
display for the occupant. Projected onto walls, tabletops,
and floors are secondary touch displays that might include
Web pages, user-selected screen savers, photos, and even videoconferences.
Together, these displays and devices help workers create personalized
environments for their daily tasks.
If this sounds like a futuristic fantasy or a dot-com utopia,
it isn’t. Together with office-furniture maker Steelcase,
IBM has already shown the new BlueSpace office concept to
more than 300 prospective customers at lab facilities in New
York and Michigan. Beta testing is expected to start this
summer. Meanwhile, organizations ranging from Cisco Systems
to MIT and Georgia Tech are creating their own prototypes,
presenting varied visions of how pervasive computing technologies
such as sensors, handheld organizers like Palm Pilots, LEDs,
and wireless networks can be integrated into the built environment
in residential and commercial settings. The presence of these
technologies is changing the way people use their offices
and homes—and it will no doubt affect the way architects
design them.
Making work feel like home
The ubiquitous, customizable nature of pervasive computing
devices is blurring the distinction between residential and
commercial spaces, giving employees more control over what
their offices look like and how they function. Through the
use of embedded sensors, BlueSpace lets workers control temperature
and lighting in their offices from their computers, or even
remotely. “If you forget to turn off the heat in your
office when you leave for the weekend, you can always take
care of it when you get home,” says Jennifer Lai, usability
expert for BlueSpace.
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Commercial spaces serve more people than individual homes,
so more types of needs have to be addressed, says Lai. With
BlueSpace, IBM and Steelcase are attempting to overcome problems
with office cubicles that affect employees and employers alike.
Companies want to make sure their employees can be productive
in cubicles, something that has long concerned workers, as
well. In focus groups that IBM put together for the BlueSpace
project, workers’ primary complaints were that “they
can’t customize their cubicles; they don’t have
any windows; they can’t meet with others; and they can’t
get privacy from interruptions for doing ‘heads-down’
work,” says Lai.
These concerns inspired IBM to develop BlueSpace’s secondary
display so that workers could enliven their cubes with still
pictures, streamed video, or other digital content of their
choice. Known as the Everywhere Display, the system uses LEDs
to project images anywhere in the cubicle. Wireless sensing
technologies allow for touch sensitivity, letting people use
their fingers as cursors—even on walls and tabletops—to
navigate the interfaces.
For creating flexible meeting spaces in the BlueSpace environment,
Steelcase developed the Monitor Rail, a highly configurable
tabletop that traverses the entire length of the cube, enabling
workers to sit by themselves or with collaborators just about
anywhere in the space.
Researchers at IBM expect to add speech recognition in office
environments—but in limited doses, to keep noise levels
down. “We don’t want employees talking to everything
in the office,” quips Lai.
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