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Collaborative environments can be understood to be "enabling" environments, which enable individuals and organizations to be creative and productive. Buildings can be seen to operate as enabling environments at different yet inter-related levels: 1) as mediator between outdoor and indoor environments; 2) as provider of appropriate indoor physical settings; 3) as host to information technology for an organization. This paper focuses on the first level, and describes a range of architectural alternatives for improved indoor environments in commercial buildings. The paper uses illustrative examples of high-performance buildings in the U.S. and Europe, contrasting their respective approaches to the integration of enclosure, mechanical, and lighting systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a progress report on the Adaptable Workplace Laboratory (AWL) within the Headquarters of the General Services Administration (GSA) of the United States of America. GSA owns, operates, leases and rents real estate for major U.S. Government agencies and departments, such as the Environmental Projection Agency, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Commerce. About 1.5 million office workers are housed nationwide in GSA owned, leased or rented buildings. Consequently, GSA is one of the world's largest landlords. To demonstrate advanced systems integration concepts, to create a platform for experimentation with innovative information technologies, furniture, heating, ventilating, air-conditioning (HVAC), lighting and building control subsystems, and, most importantly, to create organizational know-how with the goal to better serve its clients, GSA is partnering with Carnegie Mellon University's Center for Building Performance and Diagnostics under the auspices of the National Science Foundation. This partnership is to create the Adaptable Workplace Lab (AWL), a evolutionary workspace on the 7th floor of the 3rd wing of the GSA Headquarters in Washington, DC. This 10,000 sq. ft. space will feature raised flooring, plug & play non-imbedded mobile technologies, and provide for individual control of environmental systems, workstations and workgroups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]