Space Utilisation Survey for King’s College London
King’s College London (KCL), one of the oldest universities in the UK and part of the ‘golden triangle’ of research-intensive English universities, has five campuses: Strand Campus in central London, Guy’s, St Thomas’, Waterloo, and Denmark Hill, South London, collectively covering approximately 250,000m2 within 80 buildings.
KCL’s ‘Vision 2029’ initiative set out goals to transform the organisation as it adapts to the changing world: developing an International School for Government, transforming their Business School, building a new Engineering faculty, adapting to changing social patterns and technology, broadening their student base and, crucially, ensuring that they had an appropriate amount of space and resource to continue operating effectively in the mid-2020’s and beyond. Accurate empirical data was therefore required to make sound judgements as to how KCL implements some of the building blocks of their vision’s delivery.
There are many organisations that can be contracted to undertake utilisation surveys – but EventMAP deliver a unique methodology combining proprietary survey technology and A.I. based analysis post-collection. Site survey teams are armed with tablets using our cloud-based Audit Survey software, which transfers site data directly into the central Audit analysis environment. Audit’s analysis and reporting environment allows data to be processed, subsequently modelled and reported on, and provides the facility to overlay observational survey data onto previous data sources to better understand and analyse trends in space use in very flexible ways. The solution allowed EventMAP, and KCL, to drill down more effectively into the data to understand space and resource usage in ways that would otherwise not have been possible.
Powerful integrations and real-time reporting and analysis to provide insights into macro and micro trends.
Audit’s reporting capabilities include a full analytics suite, configurable, drill-down comparisons across rooms, activities and resources, trend analysis and publication and sharing tools. Data can be viewed in a variety of formats, including heatmap overlays.
Analysis is based on multi-layered data sources to create the most holistic overview possible.
Administrators can also monitor additional resource information to inform survey analysis, including security access feeds, WiFi based location information, personnel rosters and check-in and check-out times for bookings.
Feedback and monitoring are ongoing between EventMAP and the King’s College London.
EventMAP’s experience with large-scale utilisation surveys meant a team of 40 survey staff were able to easily survey, in record time, 2,800 offices, teaching rooms, meeting rooms, communal areas, labs, lecture theatres and canteens across 35 buildings within five campuses.
Survey findings suggested that levels of utilisation were lower than originally perceived.
The study highlighted that, given proper planning, the university has scope to absorb more activity without the need to acquire costly additional space – which is considered the second largest cost after staff in a university setting.
KCL can now plan with much more certainty and avoid un-necessary, additional capital expense within their ‘Vision 2029’ initiative.
EventMAP was chosen to assist KCL because of their proven experience of carrying out large scale studies in the area of space utilisation. From the outset of work, EventMAP demonstrated that we had made the correct choice. The scale and complexity of this project would deter many vendors, but EventMAP demonstrated a professionalism and understanding of the task at hand. The information captured through this process has directly informed our estate strategy and has provided valuable insights into the use of space. The supply of the online Audit tool has provided us with considerably more flexibility, as we are able cut the data in more ways to fully understand space use across the institution.
