Downgazing

The next flavour of the month

Choose a major financial centre; London, New York, Tokyo. Chicago, Frankfurt, Singapore, Hong Kong ... Wherever it is you can be sure that when the staff in its great office towers go home at the end of the day, their computers don't switch off. Instead they run programmes that download the day's business into secure vaults far away. If the firm's offices are bombed, catch fire, flood or are otherwise disabled before the start of business the next day, more computers will come alive. Key staff will be telephoned at home and a rendezvous will be arranged at the company's 'hot site', a nondescript, office building somewhere on the outskirts of the city.

This emergency headquarters, ready to receive furniture, personal computers, telephone lines and data terminals at four hours notice, is where the staff will work until the difficulty at the main office is resolved.

Worldwide there are probably 400 specialist companies offering what are now called 'business continuity services' like this. Depending on the perceived risk, these companies will take care of everything from automatic data recording to remote office lettings and emergency computer network planning.

Born in the wake of terrorist activities in several countries, nowadays they deal with other matters as well. Bombings and fires are still relatively rare. Much more common are electronic systems failures, thefts of equipment, employee sabotage and sickness, any of which can seriously damage profitability. Last year business continuity insurance against risks from bombing to food poisoning is estimated to have cost companies nearly £480 million (US$770 million) in the world's twelve major financial centres.

It is a measure of the transformation that has taken place in the relative status of place, space and information that continuity planning of this kind - once unknown - is now an integral part of the enormous Information Technology budget that, in the City of London alone, is expected to rise from £2.5 billion to £4 billion (US$4 billion to US$6.4 billion) by the year 2000, and globally could reach £70 billion (US$112 billion) by the turn of the century.

If global figures of this magnitude ring alarm bells in the minds of architects, because they wonder how much money will be left to invest in buildings after IT is satisfied, then they are right, for all the indications are that a contest is arising between IT and building construction over infrastructural investment. According to OECD figures a total of £30 billion (US$48 billion) was raised by banks and bonds worldwide for project finance last year. This private sector figure showed a massive 83 per cent increase over 1995, but a breakdown of the projects themselves showed that the overwhelming majority were in the IT or IT-related category, rather than in construction. Of the £11 billion (US$17 billion) invested in European Community projects in 1996, all except £312 million (US$500 million) for England's Channel Tunnel rail link went into IT, Telecommunications and Electricity generation and distribution.

It is the prospect of an IT-dominated future that is beginning to make the humble 'hot site' look interesting. 'Hot sites' are cheap and can be as interchangeable as used cars on a forecourt. Virtually everything to do with their usefulness is determined by their IT-friendliness, not their aesthetics or their prestigious address. Indeed, as the cost and complexity of computer and communications networks increases, so does the importance of freedom from downtime begin to overwhelm all other corporate considerations. Buildings can easily cease to be a major issue. In business managers fear IT and computer failures more than they fear any possible problem that can occur with a building - up to and including its total destruction by high explosives.

This is the bottom line for 'hot sites' for, important as they are as a form of insurance, they otherwise barely exist as a separate entity. Too small, too old, too undistinguished, too inconveniently located, they have often failed to find conventional buyers or tenants on the open market because they are without original or distinguishing features of any kind. In real estate terms they are no more than terminals. The last resort of a beleaguered corporation striving to foresee and avert catastrophe.

Why then do they now represent an opportunity? Because in corporate terms security of communications and records is already more important than architecture. In fact, in some ways, conventional corporate architecture, conspicuous, lavish and creative, has become a business liability, an easy target for public displeasure, or an individual with a grudge. As a result many major corporations not only have 'hot sites' but 'remote sites' too, places where their core business can be carried on in peace and quiet. The German airline Lufthansa has storefront offices in major cities all over the world, but all its reservations are handled from a facility in rural Galway in Ireland - as are those of American Airlines and Korean Air.

Could it be that the inverted value system of the 'hot site' and the 'remote site' is becoming a paradigm for what architects should try to provide, now that they are going to have to fight hard for a place on the corporate shopping list? Despite the efforts of art historians, under the impact of information technology all buildings, from humble dwelling house to mighty office tower, have begun to slip away from the concept of permanent and appreciating value into a kind of limbo where their value is constantly being reassessed. At one extreme is the assertive signature building, a fortress with a price tag registering hundreds of millions of currency units. At the other is the cheap and inconspicuous suburban or provincial office building.

Just as the late Howard Hughes eschewed limousines in favour of used Chevrolets in order not to attract attention, so are some experts in the art of fitting organisations into buildings looking increasingly at the modest and inconspicuous. Where future work for the corporate sector is concerned, 'downgazing' may turn out to be as important as 'downsizing'.