Discoverable Desks - Finding location and orientation in a mobile workplace
Sophie Kerttu Scott, Ben Doherty, Alessandra Fabbri, Nicole Gardner, Hank M. Haeusler · Proceedings of the International Conference on Computer-Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia · 2019
The drive towards increasing productivity through collaborative ways of working has spurred a parallel trend in flexible and adaptable workplace environments. Mobile desks are one feasible solution to this but workplaces that adopt mobile desks risk creating spatial inefficiencies. These range from overcrowding or underutilization, to potential compliance issues in terms of fire egress requirements and health and safety regulations. While there is a need to understand mobile desking configurations there are currently no well-established ways to track the location and orientation of mobile desks within workplaces. Consequently, this paper describes a research project that adopts an action research methodology as an iterative and participatory framework to investigate and develop a unique method for capturing the location and orientation of freely moveable desks in an open workplace environment. This uses an ensemble of Bluetooth location beacons and computer vision techniques to provide a finer resolution than either method alone can currently provide. The demonstration of this ensemble method is the main contribution of this work. This paper demonstrates that combining these methods can enhance the advantages of each; computer vision gives higher resolution and beacons reduce the scope of the image search task