New Diagnostic Approaches for Practicing Architects

Most business leaders don\’t see space in a workplace environment; only the objects that occupy space. To see space or, more precisely, the shape of space is a new and abstract concept for them. To further suggest that the shape of space may be folded, as well as financially measured is an idea more suited to science fiction fantasies than business financial reports. Frankly, most executives are so preoccupied with the faint financial pulse of the firm that they only have time to recognize the humans they hire by their \”cost\” in a measure commonly known as human capital. But social capital, the sum total of the collective intelligence of the corporation has greater financial impact and is every bit as invisible as the workspace. Yet it is the interrelation of space and social capital, that harmony between collective action and thought, which is precisely the problem that architects and designers must solve for. And if that weren\’t enough of a challenge, add to this mix the overlap of social interaction in Internet space! The Internet has punctuated what we commonly presume to be a Cartesian space-time continuum. And, we are not likely to abandon physical propinquity within a built environment because physicality still meets our primordial need for intimacy – that fluid sense of community that comes and goes with belonging and is inexorably linked to the raw territorialism of our hominid forbearers. But virtuality adds a significant dimension if not a departure from this space-time continuum.