Why. To provide a quick, affordable IoT solution to indicate what hot desks are currently available in an office space.
What. Pre Covid-19 there was a move towards flexible working and hot desking in Arup offices. The move to hot desks was implemented over a short time-scale and we were challenged with providing a scalable, affordable, and quick solution to help people find available hot desks in the office. We developed over 150 simple IoT button devices that sit on desks and indicate whether the desk is free or taken. When someone sits down at an available desk they hit the button to ‘take’ the desk and when they leave for the day they hit the button to ‘release’ the desk. The status of all desks is displayed on a large screen at the entrance to the office space and all data from the button boxes was captured and stored in the cloud for analysis on desk usage. Each night all button boxes are reset to ‘free’ ready for the next working day.
How. Physical prototyping, digital fabrication, electronics, cloud computing
Who. In collaboration with Oguzhan Ozkilinc, Derick Hilado, Jesus Garcia Pajé, Yogs Mangela, and James Hare.
Sarah Gallacher 