June 5, 2003
Space management at UW gets boost from GIS tool
Shortly after he came to work in the Capital and Space Planning Office (CASPO) eight years ago, Dan Trythall was asked to produce a study of how space was being used in Gerberding Hall.
He was given a box of colored pencils to display his results.
Although he may keep the colored pencils for art projects, today Trythall’s tools reside on a computer. The software Trythall and his colleagues have adapted is providing new insight into how space is used on campus — giving managers a graphical way to analyze space needs and efficiency.
The space planning office typically has sent requests to departments annually to update their space uses. The information would be collated, assembled, and put in three large three-ring binders. While complete, the information was unwieldy and basically inaccessible to people outside the office.
Trythall and his colleagues, Bruce Vik and Aaron Cheuvront, set out to develop a cost-effective, graphical system that could be used broadly by administrators and managers throughout the University. They found that the institution already had a site license for a mapping program — a Geographic Information System. Although used chiefly by academic departments such as Geography and Forest Resources, the GIS program in principle could be used to map the campus as well as a forest or city.
The system has at least two strengths. First, it was intended to be Web-based, so it could provide access to people all over campus regardless of the type of computer they use. Second, it could be interactive, allowing users not just to develop complex queries of information about space utilization, but also to correct and update the information for their particular unit.
CASPO applied for and received funding for a unit-specific University Initiatives Fund. They received $14,000 a year to purchase hardware and software, and to hire a temporary employee to develop the online database.
“We’ve viewed this as a grass-roots effort,” Trythall says, “to give sophisticated space management tools to departments, colleges and other campus units, such as the police or Computing & Communications — any unit that has specific need for information about how buildings and rooms are used.”
So they began building their system, dubbed the Space Information Management System (SIMS). Architectural drawings for 170 campus buildings have been fed into the system thus far.
“We found in many cases that what had been kept were the original architectural drawings,” Trythall says, “so there was a gap between the original use and current use of the buildings. We’ve had to rely on the people in the units to update this information.”
A wealth of data kept by space planning has been linked to each drawing — such as how individual rooms are being used, to which units the rooms belong, the source of funds, and who actually works there.
The task is formidable. The University has an inventory of 18 million gross square feet, of which 1.5 million is in leased property. There are about 44,000 rooms in 370 buildings. It’s easy to see why Trythall describes the plan as “a work in progress.”
Currently, the system has 250 users, who are able to access and update their own building information, and also can add unique information that is relevant to current issues such as building renovation.
Blaine Cameron, a planner for the College of Arts and Sciences, says that SIMS has made a huge difference in his work. “This is a tool we use for long-range planning as well as short-term issues,” he says. “I really can’t say enough about how big an improvement this is.”
Cameron uses the system on a daily basis. When a remodel is contemplated, he is able to find out how space is being utilized now, who is in it, the balance of faculty, staff, storage and laboratory space, and break this down by location, by department, or other criteria. “Having all this information in one spot makes analysis a lot quicker.”
Cameron has been so impressed with SIMS that he dismantled the “shadow” system of information that the college used to keep. “It really operates as if the system were mine,” he says. “CASPO stores it, but I update it and maintain it.”
Once the system was created, it found other uses. For example, last year the Disaster Resistant University project wanted to know the best way to present information about the University’s vulnerability to a great earthquake. Working with Sandra Lier, associate vice president for business services, Trythall was able to show graphically the predicted survivability of campus structures in the next earthquake, and overlay this information with the building’s uses — thus providing a stark picture of how the University’s research and teaching missions would be affected. “The maps provided a convenient way of displaying complex information,” Trythall says.
The information system also can be useful in the design phase of campus buildings. It can provide a detailed graphical view of a building’s efficiency — the percentage of space that actually is usable for laboratories, offices or classrooms.
“It allows us to translate what architects tell us into a visual representation,” Trythall says. “It allows those involved to focus on the essence of decision making, rather than poring over charts.”
The system also is a key component in support of the University’s indirect cost negotiation with the federal government for grants and contracts. Auditors typically will come and ask for detailed information about how space is being used for research. “It’s not complicated, but it needs to be accurate,” Trythall says.
The models are helpful in deciding how to spend scarce resources. For instance, if the campus infrastructure is to be upgraded, where should this be done in a way that has the most impact on research — or instruction? The maps can provide a detailed picture of the condition of various structures, overlaid with information about their uses.
What the UW is doing is not unique, but it is different enough that the office receives several inquiries a month from other universities. “Some people have tried to design one system that will do everything, but we’ve kept ours simple. We’re not trying to replace architectural services, facilities services or physical plant. We’re all about managing space. We want to have accurate drawings that link to a body of core data. And we want to see the system evolve over time to serve users’ needs.”
Faculty and staff with a NetID can access certain aspects of the system at http://www.washington.edu/admin/pb/sims. Those who want to become interactive users should contact Trythall, trythall@u.washington.edu.
