Making building data tangible: a PDP project with Aalto University students

We asked a multidisciplinary student team how office buildings could show their own performance. They told us to stop building dashboards.

Can building data become something people actually understand, care about, and act upon?

This was the question at the heart of a Product Development Project (PDP) carried out by an interdisciplinary student team from Aalto University Design Factory in collaboration with Agile Work and sponsored by the Erkki Paasikivi Foundation. Over the course of the academic year, the team explored how user-centric building technologies could support more sustainable and responsible use of shared office environments.

The result was Biomo, an innovative concept that transforms complex building data into intuitive, human-centered experiences.

Why this challenge matters?

Buildings play a significant role in the fight against climate change. While real estate accounts for approximately 40% of global carbon emissions, around 70% of those emissions originate from building operations (UN Environment programme, 2022). Yet the systems responsible for energy use, indoor climate, water consumption, and occupancy remain largely invisible to the people who use buildings every day.

At the same time, workplace research consistently shows that employees come to the office primarily to collaborate, focus, and connect with colleagues; not to monitor energy dashboards or sustainability metrics. This creates a disconnect between sustainability goals and everyday workplace behavior.

The PDP project set out to explore how this gap could be bridged.

From gamification to human-centered sustainability

The project began with an ambitious brief:

How can building environmental data be designed and presented in ways that encourage more sustainable user behavior and reduce the environmental footprint of office usage?

The student team conducted extensive research, including workplace observations, interviews with office users, facility managers, and industry experts, as well as benchmarking existing PropTech solutions.

One of the most interesting findings was that traditional approaches such as leaderboards, challenges, and gamification may create short-term engagement but often struggle to sustain behavioral change over time. The team also discovered a growing challenge familiar to many workplace professionals: digital fatigue. Employees are already surrounded by apps, notifications, and dashboards. (Adding another screen is rarely the answer). Proposing yet another digital platform to actively engage with, might not be the answer. This insight led the team to rethink the problem entirely.

"We gave them a fairly narrow brief and they kept widening it. Some of the concepts were far outside what we expected, and that was the value, the ambient cue direction especially, which is the part I keep coming back to. It suggests a whole category of UX design where the interface isn't a screen you go to, but something in the room you happen to notice." -Soroush Kalatian, Lead Experience Designer, Agile Work

Introducing Biomo: making building performance visible

Rather than asking users to actively monitor sustainability metrics, the team developed Biomo, a dual-layer solution that makes building performance visible through ambient and intuitive interactions.

The concept consists of two connected interfaces:

Biomo Lobby

A shared display located in communal areas such as lobbies, kitchens, or social spaces.

Instead of charts and numbers, Biomo uses animated “living” forms that respond to real-time building data. Air quality, occupancy, electricity consumption, water usage, and noise levels are represented through dynamic visual behaviors that people can understand at a glance.

The goal is not to demand attention, but to create awareness in the background—much like noticing the weather through a window.

Biomo FM

A mobile-first interface designed for facility managers.

The application helps identify anomalies, monitor building performance, support sustainability reporting, and streamline maintenance workflows. By translating large amounts of building data into actionable insights, it helps facility teams move more quickly from problem detection to corrective action.

What we found most valuable

At Agile Work, we have long believed that successful workplace development sits at the intersection of people, place, technology, and business goals.

What made this project particularly valuable was its willingness to challenge assumptions.

The team discovered that sustainability alone is rarely enough to change behavior. Instead, users respond to factors that directly affect their experience; comfort, productivity, health, and social interaction. By connecting building performance to these human needs, the project opened new perspectives on how workplace technology can create value.

The project also reinforced a broader trend we see across the real estate sector: the future of smart buildings is not just about collecting more data. It is about translating data into meaningful experiences and actionable decisions.

Looking ahead

While Biomo was developed as a student project, many of its ideas align closely with the future direction of workplace and real estate development.

The team identified several opportunities for future development, including direct integration with building automation systems, AI-supported analytics, ESG reporting capabilities, and expansion into meeting rooms and other workplace touchpoints.

For us, the project demonstrates the value of bringing together multidisciplinary thinking, user-centered design, and emerging technology to tackle complex workplace challenges.

Most importantly, it reminds us that the smartest buildings are not necessarily the ones with the most technology. They are the ones that help people understand, engage with, and ultimately improve the environments they use every day.

Thank you!

We would like to thank the talented PDP student team, Aalto University Design Factory, and the Erkki Paasikivi Foundation for making this collaboration possible.

Projects like this show what can happen when curious minds, diverse disciplines, and real-world challenges come together to explore the future of workplaces and buildings.

We look forward to seeing where these ideas go next.

Sources

UN Environment Programme. 2022.