Transforming the natural and built environments through planning
For nearly 90 years Payette has helped clients achieve their mission by thinking before and beyond our buildings with innovative planning solutions that amplify each institution’s vision. Our Space Strategies Group is a team of planners, architects, data scientists and software developers who passionately pursue ideas that align strategic thinking with capital investments. We work at the intersection of architecture, planning and data science to enrich Payette’s design practice with customized tools and programmatic expertise.
Space Strategies leverages Payette’s multidisciplinary studio to provide comprehensive capital planning services from a single office in Boston. We facilitate an interactive, data-driven process that is visionary, yet practical, and challenges the status quo. Space Strategies translates lessons between our built work and planning practice resulting in solutions that are actionable and diverse including policy, finance, operations and capital investment. From heel to toe implementation strategies to low-energy, sustainable districts, Space Strategies equips clients with the necessary tools to evolve and realize their vision.
We design buildings for technical people. Scientists, medical providers, patients and students need reliable buildings that work in unique ways. Programming is an opportunity to re-think norms and improve operations, functionality, space utilization and flow for new or renovated spaces. Our process is pragmatic and visionary, data-driven and personalized, expert and inventive.
We lend insight to our design process by creating custom apps, interactive dashboards and exquisite analytics to solve problems specific to each project. We deploy these tools to understand the specialized relationships between people, space, time and money that occur in healthcare and higher education. These capabilities enrich our design methodology and increase the value and performance of our designs from maximizing space utilization to improvements in efficiency and flow.
Pulse: Interactive Space Survey Tool
Pulse is a unique survey tool designed by Payette to facilitate client and user feedback in the visioning, planning and post occupancy phases of an architectural master plan or building design project. Designed as an interactive survey, Pulse solicits feedback about a place, design concept, building or floor plan. Pulse is an easily customizable tool for both broad discovery and specific inquiry. Responses are visualized in real-time, enabling a quick and efficient turnaround and analysis. Pulse is a powerful tool which affords a wider breadth of program data not attainable through site visits and observation.
building suitability analysis
Our Building Suitability Analysis tool identifies a building’s long-term “highest and best use” based on structure, enclosure, systems, layout and circulation factors. This tool is useful in the master planning process as Owners seek to improve alignment between the locations of people, space, facility condition and renewal. Payette uses a web-based tool to record the scores of each building. While scores are informative, our recommendations also rely on deep experience in building renovation and capital renewal.
lab planning dashboard
We use dashboards to coordinate multiple variables and summarize space planning decisions. These tools are useful both internally and in client meetings. Graphic representations of space update immediately as inputs change, which makes the relationship between people and space tangible and fosters productive conversations with clients. Because we specialize in science and healthcare buildings, we also track space across many projects and use that data to inform metrics on new projects. We use dashboards and benchmarks, together with comparable client spaces to determine the appropriate metric for each client.
