You may already program your coffee maker. You probably have your calendar on your smartphone. Your email keeps track of your schedule. But some workers in Amsterdam are way ahead of you: their office knows when their car arrives, when they need desk space, when their office is too hot or cold or needs more light or meet any number of other needs you may not even think about.
These Dutch employees work in “The Edge,” a building named the world’s greenest by the British green architecture ratings agency, according to a Bloomberg story. Among its energy efficiency attributes, the building has solar panels that produce more energy than needed and uses energy efficient lighting teamed with an array of 28,000 sensors to detect when light and energy are needed.
Natural ventilation from the buildings 15-story atrium moderates the temperature and keeps the building light and airy, even on rainy days. Though all workspaces are within 23 feet of a window, sound is buffered from the nearby train and highway noise.
Workers from one company use “hot desking” to share 1,000 work spaces among 2,500 workers. Without assigned desks, workers use their lockers (which also circulate daily or weekly) as their central location for the day.
Even the bathrooms are wired: cleaning staff monitor use of towel dispensers via the internet, to know when the bathroom needs maintenance.