From Efficiency to Effectiveness: Designing the Adaptive Workplace with Brian Aman

In this episode of Workplace Visionaries, host Jane Young is joined by Brian Aman, workplace strategy and CRE transformation leader at Rogers. Brian has a background in architecture and workplace design and a love of data, and he takes the long view on where the workplace is heading. He argues that most of the industry’s metrics, like badge counts, attendance and utilization, only tell us whether a space is full. They don’t tell us whether it’s doing its job. Brian explains how he’s moving from efficiency to effectiveness by combining Wi-Fi heat maps, AV telemetry, smart lighting sensors and work-activity signals to see whether a space supports the work people come in to do.

They talk through:

• Why Brian treats the workplace as a product, with plug-and-play peripherals and furniture-as-a-service
• How layered data finds mismatches, like half the people in a “focus” zone sitting on video calls
• Why people talking to AI tools is already reshaping open-plan design, and the case for adding friction back into the office to spark collisions and “weak ties”
• How generative design could turn weeks of feasibility planning into a single client session
• Why you shouldn’t ask the workplace to fix a policy problem, and Brian’s 10-year roadmap from analog to connected, intelligent and finally autonomous buildings