Vision Mapping is a research project aimed at extend the sphere of pedestrian simulation and crowd analysis in the planning and design of buildings and precincts. Using our MassMotion software we have been analysing the science behind people’s field of vision and the impact this has on their decision making. Preliminary research has focussed on the representation of pedestrian’s cone of vision in retail contexts.  Currently retail layout and placement with shopping centres and terminals/interchanges is undertaken with an intuitive approach. The value of adding science and a methodology to the approach is in reducing the risk and cost of spaces that just don’t work, that people seem to ignore or plainly don’t see prior to construction.

As simulation tools continue to increase in their sophisitication, mapping a persons cone of vision will be a valuable tool when offered in conjunction with people modeling skills in 3D environments. This study includes a client focus to identify needs and markets for the research. We have been meeting with designers as well as retail centre owners and operators, leasing agents and airport or station operators and commercial managers to identify the needs and current best practice in the market place.

Next is the use of cameras to film actual fields of vision in poor and good performing retail environments. The footage will be used as part of a calibration process.

This video shows that over time, and with an increase of population going through the same fields, areas will become highlighted showing as ‘hot’ which indicates the line of vision, therefore the interest/ influence locations.

Links – MassMotion. http://www.oasys-software.com/products/engineering/massmotion.html

For further information on this project please contact David Young.

A few years ago Jon Morgan, our Building Physics leader in Australasia, made the following slide to illustrate just how many different software analysis tools his team uses on a regular basis. When you multiply that across all the services a firm like ours offers that is a lot of software.

Specialists need specialist tools and sometimes software doesn’t cut it. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) has its place but it isn’t about to replace wind tunnel testing. DesignLink, which is open via a collaboration agreement, is one of the ways we address how to shift and manage data across projects.

With all this in mind, we have created Submerge to visualise multiple analysis results that are generated on projects in the one space. Large multi-disciplinary projects create huge datasets and we have been expending research and development effort to combine this data and create richer spaces for design navigation. The aim with so many disciplines is to clearly tell the story of an emergent design and Submerge is a data visualization tool that integrates the datasets into one 3D environment, providing an immersive and interactive presentation experience.

Above: Geometry and CFD analysis

Rather than presenting images from various analysis tools, we can now walk through the design with people and cars moving, or with the wind blowing as predicted by separate analysis programs.

The above image shows geometry (from Rhino via Grasshopper), wind streamlines (from CFD), structural analysis (from GSA) and Pedestrian analysis (from MassMotion) in the one 3D environment.

We have made it possible to publish the content so others can wander through in their own time and on their own computer. There is more work to do in 2012 with navigation, testing physical spaces for Submerge projection – our SoundLabs would be great – and playing with more controllers like the  Kinect. All good fun and its been nice to see client reaction to Submerge over the last few months.

We just ran Arup Design School for Australasia. It has its own website http://www.arup.com.au/designschool/

Andrew

Following last year’s Arup film and animation short course, The Impossible Dynamic City, we have just held a follow up workshop at the Victorian College of the Arts. This year we had younger staff from the Singapore, Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne offices at the VCA over two days. They immersed themselves in storytelling techniques using film and animation with Paul Fletcher and Robert Stephenson at VCA School of Film & Television.

The 2011 State of Design Festival opened in Melbourne on Wednesday 20th July and this year Arup is presenting The Invisible Landscape.

The Invisible Landscape is a project to source people’s stories about the city’s green infrastructure so that we can build a broad picture of how the community values the the city’s green spaces.

Using the website people can share thoughts, comments, information and images about the city’s landscape, discover other people’s secret green gems, or even reveal locations that could be improved to enhance the liveability of the city.

All of this is also available for the iPhone through a web app. Just navigate to The Invisible Landscape to launch the app. People be able to upload comments, information and images about their favourite green spaces around our city.

We tested the app with a guided ‘walk-shop’ along the Yarra River last Saturday to be among the first to use the Invisible Landscape app.  Participants will be able to upload comments, information and images about their favourite green spaces around our city.

Thanks to Gail Hall (Urban Landscapes, City of Melbourne), Marissa Powell
(Community Consultation, Arup), and Dan Koerner (Plot Media)

Visit The Invisible Landscape and upload your images and stories. Short code  http://aru.ps/TIL

Follow the project on Twitter @cityinvisible and Facebook.

Anyone familiar with Sydney’s Circular Quay has heard the trains rolling in and out of the elevated Circular Quay Station. From underneath the track, the trains cannot be seen but they can be heard; the noise and vibration can be felt.

During this month’s Vivid Sydney Light Festival the Sydney’s Arup Lighting team produced the work (B)right On Time, designed to replicate the movement of trains into and out of Circular Quay Station with the use of light.

We used the overhead train line at Circular Quay as the location for the installation to visualise the rail network as one of the interwoven arteries of the City of Sydney – with each train representing the blood flowing through the veins, and the lighting pulsing as a heartbeat that can be felt, thus giving sight to the beat of the life of the city.

The site incorporates approximately 100 metres of public thoroughfare, commencing at George Street and running parallel to Alfred Street to the station precinct of Circular Quay Station.

We designed the lighting system to be synchronous with the trains as they enter and leave the station via sensors mounted to the tracks above. There are many types of sensors available but a laser beam was the most simple and reliable sensor that we tested and therefore we chose go with this method. With RailCorp’s help we located a laser beam break sensor at each end of the platforms. These were mounted on existing structures on the bridge at a height to register when the train passed through, breaking the beam and sending a signal to the dry contact terminals in the control system. This in turn set off the pre-programmed light show.

RailCorp operate a train at approximately every 2-3mins in peak hour, so the frequency of light operation was regular and fairly consistent during these times. As well as being synchronised to suit the trains as they enter and leave the station, the lighting colour changed to reflect the train lines, orange lighting for the Bankstown Line,

purple lighting for the Inner West Line,

green for the Airport and East Hills line

and blue for the South Line.

We had great fun producing this project. Thanks to Vivid and the City of Sydney as well as RailCorp for access, and Inlite and Traxon for supplying the fittings.

Poor Little Fish Basin – an emotional-feedback device for saving water.

Following from my Intelligent buildings study tour in 2010 I have written a report and published several papers on the topic as well as giving quite a few presentations. I thought it was time to write a follow-up here. The following is an abridged version of the paper I wrote for the Environment Design Guide for the Australian Institute of Architects.

Introduction

As designers, we must not forget that our designs are not inherently sustainable, only that a well designed building, if constructed and used appropriately, can support and even encourage sustainable patterns of living (Cole and Brown 2009, Challenger et al 2009).

For buildings to perform well usually requires three elements: good design, good construction and good operation (Austin and Wright 2010). Good operation is not only the responsibility of occupants because building design can influence behaviour. In this view, buildings are more than just places to live or work; they can be teachers about how to live more sustainably (Fox and Kemp 2010; Brown et al 2009). A major challenge for designers, then, is to send the right messages to occupants, through a mix of subtle and overt signs, signals and feedback.

The ability to influence occupant behaviour in buildings is well known and exploited in the design of retail spaces (Salisbury 2008; Saunders 2008; Lewis 2010). Supermarkets use bakery smells to make us hungry, and the strategic positioning of products to make us walk through as much of the store as possible, and to emphasise the higher profit items.

In my papers and presentations I have argued that this type of approach can be used for more altruistic motives than sales, and that designers should explore opportunities to support and encourage sustainable behaviour through their designs. I’d like to empower designers by presenting a conceptual framework on persuasive design and using this to review a range of building elements that seek to influence behaviour. The hope is that this will spur a new critique of sustainable building design and inspire new ideas to promote user engagement.

Behaviour Model for Persuasive Design

This section presents the conceptual framework, which was developed in the Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford University by B J Fogg (Fogg 2009a) as a tool for analysing behaviour change. The framework is designed to help understand opportunities and barriers to encouraging action using technology. It gives designers a relatively simple and accessible way to analyse a situation and respond through their designs, or to review the effectiveness of a design. The value of this approach is its simplicity and ability to organise a range of related concepts into a coherent framework.

This post applies the Persuasive Design framework to the following examples:

• Encouraging proper building use through building user guides
• Encouraging creative expression through an interactive art installation (case study: Eden Project)
• Encouraging the use of natural ventilation through user operated controls (case study: the Syracuse Center of Excellence)
• Encouraging increased cleanliness and amenity (case study: urinal fly at Schipol Airport)
• Encouraging education using interactive projections (case study: California Academy of Science)
• Encouraging environmentally friendly behaviour using building dashboards (case study: Subiaco Oval, ANU SA4 student accommodation, and Arup Melbourne office)
• Encouraging environmentally friendly behaviour using emotional feedback

These examples cover a range of target behaviours, of target audiences, of approaches and of building types. It is intended to expose readers to the range of opportunities, rather than to be an exhaustive list.

Key Aspects of the Persuasive Design Model

There are four key aspects to the Persuasive Design behaviour model.

The first is the target behaviour: i.e. what is it that you are trying to encourage the building users to do? Common sustainability goals in buildings include:

• Reduce energy use
• Reduce water use
• Increase recycling and/or reduce waste to landfill
• Increase awareness / education
• Increase physical activity
• Increase interaction and social connection between occupants
• Increase creativity

And there may be a range of specific actions that would help achieve these goals, for example shorter showers to save water, turning off lights when leaving a room, using the stairs rather than the lift etc.

The second aspect is motivation; to what extent does the building user want to perform the target action? Fogg (2009a) organises motivations into three groups: sensation, anticipation and social cohesion.

• Sensation refers to feelings such as pleasure and pain; to immediate sensations.
• Anticipation refers to expected good or bad outcomes; a sense of hope or fear.
• Social cohesion refers to social acceptance and rejection. Challenger et al (2010) similarly note that social or peer groups can have a significant influence on behaviour.

Which of these will be most effective at motivating the target behaviour depends on the specific demographic or even individual. Motivation may also change, indeed will need to change, if the target action is to become habitual[1].

The third aspect is ability – how easy is it for the building user to perform the target action? Fogg (2009b) suggests that ability is a function of the user’s scarcest resource at that moment. Resources that might be required to perform the target action include[2]:

• Time
• Money
• Knowledge
• Physical effort
• Mental effort (skill, cognitive ability, breaking old or establishing new habits or routines)

Again, which of these abilities is the limiting factor will depend on the demographic and/or individual.

Behaviour Model for Persuasive Design
(Adapted from Fogg 2009a, 2009b)

The fourth aspect is a trigger. Triggers can be categorised based on a person’s location in the motivation / ability axes (Figure above):

• Spark – Low motivation, high ability. A trigger that motivates people who already possess the ability. For example, seeing people having fun with an interactive projection or art installation, or, as will be discussed later, due to a simulated emotional response aimed at encouraging energy saving actions.
• Facilitator – high motivation, low ability. A trigger that assists people who lack ability. It could be as simple as knowledge about how to operate systems correctly conveyed through a building users guide, or knowledge about how energy is being used conveyed through a building dashboard.
• Signal – High motivation and ability. Fogg (2009a,b) suggests that when motivation and ability are both high, they create a latent condition that can be activated by a signal. An example of this, discussed later, is the mixed-mode ventilation system at the Syracuse Center of Excellence.

Those with low motivation and ability may require both spark and facilitator triggers.

Examples of Persuasive Design

Building Users’ Guides

Building users’ guides are a way for the design team to convey the design intent to occupants and explain how to operate systems correctly. They are rewarded in Green Star and advocated as part of the Soft Landings Framework[3] (UBT et al 2009).

Building users’ guide from K2 Apartments
(Source: DesignInc, Department of Human Services (Victoria), 2007)

The target behaviours of a building users’ guide could be almost anything associated with the running of a building, but all are trying to ensure the running of a building in line with its design intent.

A building users’ guide can act as a facilitator type of trigger for its target actions by providing knowledge about how things (should) work.

Building users’ guides typically do not inherently motivate people to read them – people need to be motivated in some other way to start reading the guide. This might be through interest in the building, difficulty operating an aspect of the building, or other incentives provided by relevant stakeholders. The ability of people to read the guides will depend largely on whether the guide has been written for the target audience. UBT et al (2009) suggests that guides avoid technical jargon and use diagrams. To this I would add that guides need to take into account the literacy level, native languages and cultures of the target audience. A guide for social housing should look and read differently to one for a university office building.

Building users’ guides should generally include information on the following topics (UBT et al 2009, GBCA 2008): the building systems and associated user interface, security and access, environmental performance targets, waste and recycling storage and procedures, transport options (including bike parking and public transport), and links and contact details for further information.

Interactive Art Installation

During the study tour (Healey 2010), I was fortunate enough to visit the Eden Project, in Cornwall. In the Eden Project’s education centre, known as The Core, there was an interactive art installation consisting of doors from fridges and dishwashers. These were covered with alphabet fridge magnets, with the (apparent) intention that people could write messages with them.

I suggest that the target behaviours of this installation are creative expression and social interaction. My personal motivation was fun – ‘pleasure’, in framework terminology. The novel use of old whitegoods combined with alphabet fridge magnets brought back childhood memories and encouraged a sense of playfulness. During my time there, I observed at least as many adults writing messages as children.

It is very easy for people to interact with the display. The magnets are easy to reach, require little physical effort to move around and it is free to do (once you are inside the Eden Centre). Users do not even need to be literate – some used the letters to create images.

I observed a number of triggers for the installation, including the dominant physical presence of the wall in that space (signal), curiosity as to the purpose of the letters (spark), and seeing other people interacting and having fun (spark).However I did notice a sign (spark, or perhaps anti-spark?) on a near-by roller door, suggesting a desire to put bounds on people’s creative expression.

Occupant Operated Controls

The number of mixed-mode buildings has been increasing in Australia over the past decade. Mixed-mode buildings are those that can be either naturally or mechanically ventilated, depending on the environmental conditions at the time. In some cases the control of them is fully automated, with the Building Management System (BMS) deciding when to use natural or mechanical ventilation based on sensors and its programming. In other cases, occupants are able to open windows to naturally ventilate a space. The headquarters building of the Syracuse Center of Excellence, in New York State, has a mixed-mode ventilation system that is automatically controlled in the common room and manually controlled in the office area.

The Center is a collective of companies, organisations and education institutions that investigate and develop systems related to indoor environment quality and the environmental performance of buildings. The headquarters building is a LEED platinum rated building that is designed to be a test-bed for the research of the Center (Healey 2010).

The target behaviour is for occupants to open windows and naturally ventilate the space. This should reduce energy consumption and give occupants greater connection to the outside world.

The system does not include any overt motivational strategies. It relies on occupants wanting to save energy by naturally ventilating the space. Given that the building is dedicated to research related to sustainable buildings, it is reasonable to expect that the occupants will have a high awareness of the potential benefits of natural ventilation, and therefore be intrinsically motivated.

The process of opening the window involves a number of steps. Occupants open the office door, walk out into the corridor, lift the insect screen, open the window, then close the insect screen. The air-conditioning in that zone automatically switches off when the window is open so that energy is not wasted. While this does not require much physical ability, it does require people to know the process. This will require education of new staff as they move in to the building.

The triggers for this system are an indicator light (signal) located high up in one corner of the room and a desktop notification. These items show a green light or appropriate message respectively when outside conditions are suitable for natural ventilation.

At the time of writing, the Center had been occupied for approximately eight months. The system was reported to be working correctly from a technical perspective (i.e. active systems turn-down when windows are open), while the operation of the indicator system and response of occupants are being studied in detail by researchers at the Center (Santanam, 2010).

Urinal Fly

In the men’s bathrooms at Schipol Airport, Amsterdam, you can find an interesting example of a user engagement device – it is called the urinal fly. Essentially, the urinals have a picture of a fly stuck on them in a strategic location. The company that makes them claims that they keep bathrooms up to 85 per cent cleaner (Urinal Fly 2010).

The target behaviour in this example is more accurate ‘aiming’ by users, reducing the need for cleaning and increasing amenity. The company also offers other images, such as cross-hairs, trees and rubber ducks, for use in commercial buildings or to help children with potty and toilet training (Urinal Fly 2010).

The motivation in this case is subtle and doesn’t easily fit with Fogg’s (2009a,b) categories. The closest I could suggest is pleasure, although this may give the wrong impression of men’s habits at urinals. Typical urinal users do not want to make a mess and therefore tend to aim roughly in the right direction in the first place. The urinal fly helps them aim in the optimum location to prevent splashback.

The trigger (signal) is simply the sight of the fly in the urinal. It would seem that many males are already sub-consciously motivated and able to aim at something if presented with the opportunity.

Interactive Projections

On a recent study tour I saw two examples of interactive projections (Healey 2010). The first was at Newark Airport (New Jersey, USA) and was of an underwater scene. Fish were swimming around and as people walked past the whole image rippled. I could not discern what the target behaviour was for this installation; the best I could suggest is that it is a way to pass the time while you wait for your plane.

The other example I saw, at the California Academy of Science, had a much clearer purpose.

The California Academy of Science is a multi-disciplinary museum and research institute located in San Francisco. Among the various exhibits is an interactive projection of a Madagascan forest floor, including plants, leaves, logs and insects.

The target behaviour is to educate children (and adults) about the insects of Madagascar. The motivation to engage was most definitely pleasure. Many children (and some adults) spent a lot of time laughing and chasing insects around the floor. The ability for people to interact with the projection was high, however, the ability for people to do this as intended by the exhibit designers though seemed to be low. It was very easy make parts of the projected image move – leaves and insects, however, very few people seemed to be following the intent of the exhibit of catching the insects in order to activate the instructional video. Most people (the author included!) simply tried to stand on the insects.

The trigger for engaging with the exhibit was the spark of seeing the projection and other people enjoying it. The facilitator trigger for using it properly though, was a sign located nearby. In this case, the spark of the projection and people was much stronger than the facilitation of the sign. This could be because the sign was far more passive than the projection and people. Also, the sign may not be the best form of instruction because for children, who were by far the most common users of the exhibit, it would have generally required an adult to read the sign and pass on the instructions to them.

Building Dashboards

There is increasing interest in providing feedback to building occupants in the form of dashboards. These are typically displays located in prominent areas, or web interfaces that give charts on energy consumption, water consumption etc. As Austin and Wright (2010) note, quantitative data combined with relevant benchmarks can greatly assist good building operations. With sensors, computers, and data storage becoming smaller, cheaper and more powerful, there is an increasing number of companies offering dashboard systems.

In residential applications, various studies have found energy savings of between 0 and 15 per cent, depending on whether the feedback is direct or indirect, and the time delay between the energy consuming action and the feedback (Darby 2006, Ehrhardt-Martinez et al 2010). Savings of this magnitude make these types of systems very attractive as ways of influencing users. Three examples are discussed here, WA Football Commission, Australia National University SA4 student accommodation, and Arup’s Melbourne office. One thing that these three examples have in common is the use of what might be called socio-technical approaches (Challenger et al 2010), i.e. they combine persuasive technology and social interventions.

ANU SA4 Student Accommodation

During 2010, a project team including the ANU, Alba Capital, Nettleton Tribe architects and Arup prepared a performance brief for a new 500-apartment student accommodation building just outside the Canberra CBD.

ANU’s goal for the project was for it to have a number of green features and to engage the occupants. One of these features, specified in the performance brief, is a dashboard system, giving feedback on energy use and generation, water use and collection, and movement of people up and down the main stair case. The target behaviours, at least initially, are just good energy and water saving practice such as turning lights offs, short showers etc.

The dashboard system enables the operator of the building, Unilodge, to motivate (spark) students and give them the ability (facilitator) to take action. Petersen et al (2007) note that because dormitory residents typically pay a flat rate that includes utilities, there is not a financial incentive for them to be resource efficient. Some students may already be motivated by environmental concerns, though, and by having access to feedback, may take action themselves.

To encourage the target behaviours in more of the residents, Unilodge will run competitions (spark) and other related education activities. The dashboard system will likely also have the ability to communicate using twitter and other new media, which is expected to provide better engagement with the student demographic.

Arup Office Realtime Display

Challenger et al (2010) note that aligning persuasive technology and organisational initiatives can help encourage behavioural change. This is something that Arup’s offices will be trialling from early 2011. In 2010, Arup’s Australian offices became ISO 14001 certified. Objectives under the EMS relate to energy, water, waste and recycling, paper use and office products.

To help track progress, motivate performance towards these targets and encourage awareness of transport options, a dashboard system has been set up that will display: energy usage per floor, paper usage from photocopiers and printers, the number of computers that are on, the Yarra Trams tram tracker[4]  for nearby stops, and air travel.

Emotional Feedback

The final set of examples also provides feedback, but in contrast to the quantitative feedback of the dashboards, these examples are emotive. Whereas dashboards use numbers and benchmarks to provide feedback on whether performance is good or bad, these examples tap into intuitive emotional cues (or at least the designers hope so).

The examples provided below are research or design propositions; however this type of approach is also being used in real applications. For example, new Ford hybrid vehicles will have dashboards that can give feedback on driving efficiency using of a leafy vine, which grows more lush and healthy if the car is driven efficiently (Ideo 2009). Perhaps we will see a digital tree representing a building’s environmental performance, similar to the Ford dashboard vine, in an office lobby in the future?

Virtual Polar Bear

An example for behaviour in buildings is the use of a virtual polar bear pet on an iceberg (Dillahunt et al 2008). The iceberg increased in size when test subjects reported that they had performed environmentally responsible actions and shrunk when they did not perform those actions. A number of strategies were used to strengthen the connection between subjects and their virtual pet, including: information on the impact of climate change, getting subjects to name their pet, and encouraging personal reflection. The study showed that test subjects reported increased environmentally responsible behaviour.

Poor Little Fish

A second example is a sink with a gold fish bowl, including fish, on top of it – the designer calls this the Poor Little Fish Basin (Lu 2010). The target behaviour of this device is for people to turn the tap off as soon as possible. It is reasonable to expect that if someone could turn the tap on, then they will have the ability to turn it off. The interesting aspect is how it motivates (spark-trigger). When the tap is turned on, the water level in the fish bowl begins to drop. The water in the bowl is not connected to the tap, rather the level is adjusted to give the impression that it is. Yu’s (2010) aim was to make consumption tangible and emotive.

iCat

The third example is the iCat by Philips. The iCat is a desk-top robot for studying human-robot interaction. It uses motors to control different parts of the face, such as the eyebrows, eyes, eyelids, mouth and head position, so that it can simulate different facial expressions (Philips 2005). This has been used in a range of research; the example here is in relation to programming a washing machine for maximum efficiency.

The target behaviour was for test subjects to programme the washing machine to be most efficient for the laundry load described (Midden and Ham 2009). To give participants a base level of motivation, they were instructed to use as little electricity as possible and informed that washing uses electricity. Participants were also given instruction and trial runs at programming the washing machine so that they had the ability to use the machine efficiently. Participants were then asked to programme for a particular washing type (e.g. washing dirty jeans). The spark was delivered via the simulated emotional response of the iCat robot. The iCat used a combination of facial expressions (movement of mouth, ears, eyebrows), illuminated eyes (red or green) and speech recordings, to convey a positive or negative emotion in relation to the energy efficiency of the washing machine’s programming. Interestingly, the researchers compared this against purely quantitative feedback with an energy meter. Midden and Ham (2009) report that the emotional feedback from the iCat had a greater impact on behaviour than the quantitative feedback, and that negative emotional feedback had a stronger effect than positive.

Conclusion

It is possible for designers to support and encourage sustainable behaviour in buildings. The range of examples shows that the possibilities are limited only by imagination; with it possible to achieve engagement with low-cost, low-tech designs such as the fridge magnet wall at the Eden Project, as well as high-tech installations like interactive projections.

It is also possible to provide feedback to people in various ways, from the quantitative charts of a dashboard to the emotive feedback of an iCat. The conceptual framework presented and used to analyse the examples was shown to be a simple but effective way of reviewing persuasive designs.

All our designs are teaching or reinforcing behaviours in building occupants, the question to ask ourselves is: what messages are we sending? With Persuasive Design, we can begin to answer that question.

Footnotes

[1] As a person performs the action multiple times, their location on the motivation-ability scale is likely to change. For example, their ability may increase because they are developing the skill to perform that action. Conversely, there could be examples where their motivation decreases because the target action becomes irritating.
[2] Fogg (2000) includes social deviance under ability, however I suggest that this is better considered as part of the social cohesion scale on the motivation axis.
[3] The Soft Landings Framework is a process that is gaining popularity in the UK. It seeks to strengthen the links between the procurement process, initial occupation and longer term monitoring and review. Ultimately it is aimed at facilitating continuous improvement in the built environment by more effectively exchanging information between designers, facility managers, building owners and occupants, and encouraging the learning and sharing lessons about how to do things better.
[4] This is a realtime tram timetabling system.

References

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The Johnson Estate Sculpture is the outcome of a bequest in the will of the late Ronald Johnson. The will directed that a substantial sum of money should be used to provide a work of sculpture to be placed on the Sydney Harbour foreshore. Following an international competition, the Trustees of the Estate selected Chris Booth, an internationally renowned sculptor from New Zealand, to develop the sculpture. The site chosen for the sculpture is close to Government House in the Royal Botanic Gardens.

We started the project working with Chris Booth’s 1:50 scale maquette in clay. This was the ‘contract document’ that defined the intent of the sculpture. To move the maquette to a digital model a 3D laser scan was made, with the resulting point cloud becoming the geometrical background for further model geometry to be created, which was done in Rhino3D.

The work comprises 2 separate components, the Quartz form and the Sandstone wave form and we used various 3D products to virtually construct and review the entire sculpture through interactive review meetings with all parties involved in the project.

The hollow quartz form is a skin made up of about 16,000 quartz pebbles threaded and woven together with stainless steel cable and wire that is supported by an invisible internal stainless steel structure. A very special Sydney Aboriginal shield design will be the feature of this weaving. It is woven into the quartz form using ochre coloured Nepean River pebbles. The original of this shield is in the Australian Museum and approval for its replication has been given by the Gadigal Aboriginal Community whose ancestors lived in this Sydney region.

The sandstone wave form appears as three undulating strata emerging from the ground. Their undulation and separation is reminiscent of strata that have been subjected to land movement due to tectonic forces. This form was constructed out of about 260 Hawkesbury sandstone blocks quarried from Gosford Quarries. These large blocks – up to 3 metres in length and half a metre thick are bolted together with stainless steel bolts drilled through them in such a way as to be invisible in the finished sculpture. Each block was cut to shape and drilled for the bolts from a detailed drawing generated from the 3D model.

Clash analysis software was used to prove bolting arrangements of the stone blocks was achievable. High dynamic range laser site surveys were used to measure installation tolerances against the digital model and 3D PDF’s were created and used by stone mason’s site team to understand the irregular shapes of the stone blocks and assisted in understanding of the installation sequences and propping locations.

The sculpture was opened on 9th March and has been named Wurrungwuri (‘This side of the Water’)

Arup
Jeff Casson, John Hewitt, Peter Jameson, Alex Edwards, Stuart Bull, Kai Nelson, Rick Benjamin, Chris Mawson & Bruce Moir

Traditional Stone contractors
James Ginter

Gosford Quarries (supplier of sandstone and fabricators)
Garry Boyce, Phil Brown & Greg Cook

[Above: Arup Office Realtime]

We just launched Arup Office Realtime, a data visualisation designed around the firm’s sustainability objectives. Office Realtime is a system that presents live data streamed to our offices and includes paper usage, electricity consumption, transport updates, carbon generated by air travel and more…

For nearly two years, Andrew Maher, myself and countless other Arupians dotted around the globe have discussed data visualisation as a way to better communicate the content we create on projects; and up until recently the challenge has been to find data or analysis results that present well and make immediate sense to the audience.  Part of the challenge with design and engineering data is that as soon as a design changes, so do the analysis results; affecting the intended visualisation immediately.  For a graphic designer to spend even a short amount of time visualising data, the results, and therefore the design, would have to remain unchanged for as long as possible.  But what about information that is already readily available and ordinarily invisible within the workplace?  And what about information that could be collected and be viewed in realtime?

[Above: Me, Andrew and Toby at the launch]

This project has some history,  around 18 months ago, Andrew Maher attended a meeting with our sustainability consultants to discuss how he could help to further develop the way they communicate their work. One of the outcomes was the 1200 Buildings data visualisation as visualisation was something clients were beginning to ask for.

Then in 2010, Gerard Healey dodged the ash cloud and undertook a world tour of intelligent buildings; those buildings in which active measures were being taken in design and operation to reduce the amount of energy consumed and to change their occupants behaviour.  Gerard sent back stories and photos for the Fields of Activity blog and it has been one of our most popular blog posts.

Soon after that, Mike Rainbow (Building Sustainability) approached Diana Coelho (Organisational Psychologist) and Andrew to help with a presentation for a new fit-out project. The client had a comprehensive sustainability strategy which was largely reliant on the building performance after the fit-out.  Mike suggested to client that we could make a small intervention to engage their staff and change behaviours – Mike’s idea was to highlight paper use in realtime and broadcast consumption back to staff. They liked the idea, but wanted to know who had done it previously – but who had done it?  No one, that we knew of.

Not long after that, as part of Arup’s Sustainability Policy (we implemented a certified Environmental Management System (ISO 14001) across the region), workshops were held for all Arup staff; an extraordinary effort in itself. One of the aims was to educate all about reducing energy and waste by at least 5% in 2011.  Following the workshops, I briefly discussed publishing paper usage with Aaron Yuen, our Key Environmental Representative in Melbourne, and Peter Bowtell, then Melbourne Office Leader, via the intranet. Andrew was having similar discussions with the same and many other people, including public transport companies, but on a much, much more grand a scale.  (At least twice a year, I feel like working with Andrew is a bit like Marconi and Tesla; we both have similar ideas, but it takes a few days, or a few weeks for us to come together and realise we’re talking about the same thing.)

[Above: Office launch]

Late last year, Andrew employed Tom Gasson, a computer science student, to start collecting the data that was available; printer usage, flights and carbon emissions region-wide, realtime computer usage, and energy data; and to start building a database, as well as using Processing to visualise the data.  He then approached Toby Welch and I about creating the web-based front-end to display the data on large LCD screens in the office entryways.  After all, what better way to encourage change than to promote current energy and waste usage to clients?  Part of Andrew’s inspiration was Sprint’s Now Network advertisement; a feat in programming perhaps, but a struggle to interpret at a glance; one has to view it as a proof of concept more than a working example.  Toby and I started to think about what we could do.

Yes, the irony of trying to reduce energy by displaying the information on large flatscreens does not escape us.  In our own defence, let’s just look at few initiatives we have had in place for the last year or more:

• Lighting in our offices is controlled by sensors.  No movement? No lights.
• All printers, including plotters, enter sleep mode after being idle for half an hour.
• In the Melbourne office, we have had a Paperless Office initiative in place for the last 4 years, and for an engineering firm, we print surprisingly few drawings.
• Provision of recycle bins for waste plastics, aluminium, and paper
• Recycling of IT equipment via a third party
• Utilisation of alternatives to air travel e.g. video conferencing
• Last year, across the region, IT rolled out mandatory overnight shutdowns for all computers.  This process can only be manually bypassed if you are still using your  computer in the hour prior to shutdown.

On top of the initiatives we already had in place, we also had specific requirements for the screens to display the information on.  They had to be LED, they had to be at least a six-star rating, and it had to be rated at less than 150W.  The screens we have since purchased are rated at 98W, around a third of a standard PC.

The initial planning of the project also enabled us to purchase energy meters to be installed in our Melbourne office.  The meters will allow energy consumption to be monitored in realtime, feed into our database, which can then allow reports to be run whenever we want or need them.

We began with a simple interface to observe and measure our data before Andrew Buckley took over the look and feel.  In the last week before the launch, we rewrote the backend code from scratch; finally settling for pure HTML5 and CSS3 and a compliant browser (Google Chrome).  We also worked on the idea that the incentive for behavioural change can be as easy as promoting healthy competition between offices.  To do this we are going to take the totals for each set of data, and work out the averages per capita for each office.  In the coming weeks, after the rollout to the east coast; we hope that people will think twice about printing those two page emails; knowing that staff in another office, on average, print 10 pages less a day than us.

[Above: The average Arupian page]

How is our custom approach to the dashboard different to a building management system (BMS)?  Building management systems are great – for building managers, but what if you just occupy one level?  Typically, BMS dashboards equate energy to cost and cost savings over time, but we wanted to show usage in terms of environmental impact, and not simply translate everything back to dollars and cents.  We’ve taken data that applies to everyone in our office, and presented it in an engaging, aesthetically pleasing way.

We’ve just rolled the Office Realtime out to the Melbourne office.  Our staff are impressed and keen to track usage over the coming months, and our Sustainability team is happy.  Very happy.  Next are launches in Sydney and Brisbane.  And all of this just to keep us conscious of how much impact we make; compared to how little impact we could make.

Want to know more?  Come see for yourself.  Did I mention that we also included public transport information on the display as well?  No?  Well that’s quite vital actually.  For staff and clients alike, as we leave the office we can now check when our tram is coming, or whether the train service is ok or not.  That’s actually one thing that our Office Realtime may not have the power to change.  Yet.

Here’s a list of the team, and without the support and enthusiasm of a larger number of people, the core project wouldn’t have happened in such a short amount of time.

Project Team:

Andrew Maher, Tom Gasson, Toby Welch, Andrew Buckley, Dean Morris &  Scott Fagg

Its a wrap for this year and what a year it has been. On Thursday9th December Arup held a workshop at the Victorian Space Science Education Centre (VSSEC) with VSSEC and Engineers Australia. We explored and imagined the potential for this facility to become both an educational and industry facility for concurrent design.

Many thanks to Mark Burry from SIAL, Peter Raisbeck from Uni Melb and Agustin Chevez from Geyer who all have interests in the area and with whom we look forward to continuing to work with in 2011. More in the new year, but needless to say the workshop built on the work we did during the year on digital technologies and new forms of procurement.

There will be plenty of posts to come in early 2011 that will explain what follows and more. As I look over the projects Digital Innovation has worked on this year, I don’t think I could have predicted either the breadth or the number. Just a scratching the surface here… we’ve developed iPad apps (as an Apple Enterprise Developer) in Brisbane, we’re in the cloud – the Amazon Cloud – with our GIS+ work in Perth. Interactive Reports really took off and made their way around the region and client feedback has been brilliant. From Sydney there will be posts on what we’ve done with the Makerbot printing as well as how we are using Microsoft’s Kinetic. In Melbourne we’ve been doing some very cool work in Grasshopper and the Melbourne Office Realtime will make its debut early in the New Year. The animation workshop we did with the VCA has spawned nascent film makers around the firm. Thanks also to Hassell for the feedback!

We’ve won some interesting ARC Linkage grants and I think they ought to have their own pages devoted to the work, which brings me to the site.  In 2011 there will be a revamp to include our design work. Digital Innovation has been literally embedded in some groups and Melbourne Buildings called theirs Design and Digital Innovation. Led by John Bahoric, they are regularly meeting, sharing work and including clients. This broadening of the DI project goes hand-in-hand with intentions of the firm and the site’s content and layout will reflect that.

Thanks to those we have worked with during the year. Thanks to the team and all those in Arup who contribute. Digital Innovation sits at the front end of our projects, surfing the wave. It couldn’t happen without the support of the firm’s leadership, the Australian Regional Board and in particular Peter Bowtell, our Australasian Buildings Leader and Chris Graham, our Chief Operating Officer.

I scrawled a note during the last summer break “2010 – data; mobile and visualisation” and now I’m off to scrawl some more. All the best for the New Year.

Andrew