Smart offices for boomers to Gen Z in the future of work

In the second of a two-part series, The Straits Times looks at how workspaces and the purpose of work might change.

- Krist Boo

It is not exactly Code Red, but the dashboard is calling attention to Toilet D, Cubicle C.

The toilet paper is down to onetenth, the floor is sopping, and a co-worker seems to have had an unspeakable turn, going by the ammonia reading.

What sounds like toilet science fiction is already plausible at the OpenBlue Innovation Center, a living experiment office at the National University of Singapore fitted out by building solutions firm Johnson Controls.

A TV screen at the coffee corner live-streams the pantry space of another office to promote "watercooler" encounters, and an overexpressive planter on your desk grumbles over a phone app that it is thirsty.

When not demanding, the peace lily called Floramis doubles as a virtual pet, offers guided meditation breaks and helps book meeting rooms.

Caretaking this office is its digital twin, which flags to building managers faults and abnormalities in security, air-conditioning, utilities, toilet functions and more in real time, or in advance.

Its metrics are powered by artificial intelligence (AI), fed by sensors and cameras that ingest live data from the buildings' systems, as well as from the workers that occupy them.

The technology, said Johnson Controls digital solutions director Terence Tan, lets building managers quickly locate faults, bench-mark systems, and step up maintenance before sensors, buildings and equipment deteriorate to the point of breakdown.

Clever? Wait until the era of edge analytics.

"In the next five years, increasingly, a wider variety of data can be ingested, including from wearables like a smart watch of an occupant," Mr Tan said. "We can compress an Al model into a small footprint and run it on any edge device, such as a camera or air-handling unit, to make system decisions."