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By Alan Joch
Architects aren’t strangers to using consultants. Designers
regularly employ specialists to nail down engineering, lighting,
landscaping, and other important details in their projects.
These days, architects are turning more frequently to a new
type of consultant for the digital age—one that specializes
in networking, telecommunications, and audio/visual (A/V)
systems, as sophisticated communications technologies become
essential elements in buildings.
The elevated role of communications consultants results from
the increasing willingness of corporations, universities,
health-care organizations, and others to embrace maturing
technologies like videoconferencing and so-called “converged”
networks, which merge data and voice traffic over a single
digital infrastructure. These consultants don’t just
handle phones anymore. Often, they have expertise in designing
and installing data networks, video production, and sound
and lighting systems that make it possible to view a discussion
in a conference room in New York City from a location in Los
Angeles or anywhere else in the world.
A niche with influence
Rather than outsiders who sign off on one element of a design,
these specialists often have a lot of input on the look and
feel of a project. “Five years ago, bringing in a [communications]
consultant would have been an afterthought,” says Glenn
Leitch, AIA, design director for the architecture firm Highland
Associates in New York City. “Now it’s something
standard that happens before design begins.”
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In New Jersey, Chase
Manhattan Bank’s ChemNetwork houses critical
data in a
single structure. The viewing gallery (not shown)
lets visitors see some of the action. A video
wall (at right above) keeps employees abreast
of the latest headlines.
Photography: © Walter
Dufresne
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The tie between communications technology and design is becoming
so intimate, in fact, that sometimes technology is the design.
Clients who want to look like leaders in their fields believe
that high-tech touches like video screens and futuristic phones
provide a symbolic aesthetic image, which opens up designers
to new visual possibilities. “Technology can activate
a space,” Leitch believes. “It’s becoming part
of the design and gives us a new material to play with.”
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