Laboratory Design Newsletter - September/October 2014

The science of collaboration
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room and auditorium to encourage informal interaction. Nooks set along the walkways provide collaboration spaces for small ad hoc teams. Exceptionally wide hallways allow teams to create “living rooms” where people can work together. Although collaboration spaces are well used, building population has grown over the years, so many spaces have been walled off to make room for additional office space. Recently, the facility incorporated hoteling spaces that will allow affiliate faculty who aren’t consistently at the Institute to share space.

Similarly, NREL recognized the importance of working with a wide range of industry stakeholders and disciplines that include, but are not limited to, utilities, system integrators, technology developers, state energy departments, universities, private companies, government agencies and other national labs. NREL developed the ESIF with those users in mind, as well as promoting a collaborative culture internally for their scientists. At ESIF, external partners can move in and develop or test emerging technologies in NREL’s labs as multidisciplinary experts work side-by-side. To do this, the centrally located data center is strategically fused to the Insight Center, which is where researchers and partners can visualize experiments performed in the labs (Figure 1). Nearby, huddle rooms, conferencing space, restrooms, vertical circulation and casual interaction space attaches the data center to the high-bay lab spaces, promoting movement and collaboration.

TANGIBLE RESEARCH

Although there has long been an assumption that these spaces allow people to interact more, encourage collaboration and foster innovation, there has been little empirical research on the topic. Researchers at the Univ. of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research recently compared two buildings at the Univ. of Michigan North Campus Research Complex to explore the relationship between space and collaboration. Their research concentrates on a new spatial metric, Path Overlap, or the measure of the extent to which individual researcher’s daily circulation routes intersect. The study creates simple paths for each researcher, using four anchor points: the office, lab, nearest restroom and nearest elevator. Paths are mapped on the assumption that people will prefer the shortest travel distance.