There are T-shirts floating around WeWork’s New York City headquarters that say “Buildings equal data.” The nano manifesto hints at a conviction that architecture should be shaped by a methodical study of how people utilize spaces instead of unique aesthetic signatures. More than that, correlating digital information with physical structures is good business—it has quickly become a core strategy for the eight-year-old, $47 billion company racing to expand its footprint globally. — Metropolis
Architects today are very familiar with data and its influence over design, construction, and feasibility. However, what else can data teach us? When you're a massive billion dollar company like WeWork, opportunities for turning data into teachable tools coincides well with the company's progressive ethos.
Say what you will about the company, regardless of your views their intentions of transforming the tools and perspectives of real estate, architecture, and design is reflective of the decisions they've made thus far. For WeWork, data isn't just a tool but an asset to the company's overall growth and success. "It’s hard to overstate how essential data is to WeWork’s operations. Specifically, architectural data. Nearly four years ago, the company underscored this dependency when it acquired Case, a BIM consultancy whose expertise WeWork relied on even in its early years (it was founded in 2010). With David Fano, Case’s co-founder and a renowned expert in BIM, appointed as chief growth officer at the time of the acquisition, WeWork began integrating analytics throughout its value chain at an ambitious scale and a pace greater than that of its competitors and even the largest architecture firms."
By studying analytics from their geographic information locations around the world, the company uses this data and translates it into its design process. In doing so, WeWork has created its own data generated catalog which contains design solutions that have been pretested and experienced. According to Liz Burrow, the company's director of workplace strategy, each room and the design possibilities within WeWork bases can be explored and dissected thanks to their "kit of possibilities." Ideal workspaces can be designed and constructed thanks to reconfigurable spatial modules that are tailored to fit the needs of each new space.
"To support this global expansion, WeWork employs about 900 architects, interior designers, engineers, and builders who screen and rely on analytics at every juncture of their job." Much effort and detail are put into every location. Not only is this attention to detail seen within their data gathering but within WeWork's team. The company believes that data-informed decision making not only allows for endless design possibilities but can be used as a way for architects to rethink data and information to "drive dialogue" within the built environment.
For more backstory on WeWork, check out Paul Petrunia's conversation with co-founder Miguel McKelvey, recorded live from New York, during the 2018 AIA National Convention.
4 Comments
Please. This is a 'Animal House meets Starbucks' with an Ikea vibe. They incur long-term leases and give short-term leases to pretend wanna-be entrepreneurs living in their parents basement who are hardly able to scrape together their college loan monthly repayment. Data? They are avidly collecting data on their tenants and seeking to monetize that data any which way they can. Will it be enough to stave off bankruptcy? Was the band playing on the Titanic enough to keep it afloat?
Data might tell you the (shallowly) the what, (maybe) where and (maybe) when but it can’t tell you how or why. It’s not an unbiased source of info. I’m sure all of those beautiful spaces where drawn and modeled by real designers, not a computer. I get that data is valuable, but I notice these spaces don’t accommodate any manufacturers or architects or spaces that require different kinds of work — only a certain type of white collar millennial with a laptop. (Most people I know prefer the normal office to these spaces). Data is a shallow way of thinking about user experience .... or design experience.
That said I think there are interesting, unexplored ways of contextualixing data with architecture-principles, but that’s not what they are talking about here ... just the usual lowest common denominator black box corporate data gathering.
WeWork took to opportunity of people who need socialize again by moving out from their home offices.
WeWork excels at coming up with cool phrases designed to separate investors from their money. "space as service" "buildings equal data" Media outlets like Metropolis then repeat them with no mention of the company's Ponzi-scheme finances.
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