He looked around the room for a moment, then offered his idea. “Reconfigurable spaces are great for our own internal meetings. But a leak regarding the potential acquisition of a competitor by one of our clients could derail the whole deal,” he pointed out. “Our clients may not feel comfortable meeting in rooms with removable walls and less than ideal acoustical separation.”

“What if we leave three fixed rooms for 20 people each and then provide reconfigurable space for the other half of the area?” Suzy asked.

“That sounds like a good compromise to me,” I replied, “please do so.”

Everyone began working on their models, and within a few minutes we had a complete final design for the meeting rooms.  Our final option was only 8% more expensive than the fixed-room configurations, a fair price to pay for more flexible space.

As we were leaving our meeting, I looked at Ali and asked, “Ali, what are your impressions of this real-time concurrent design process?”

“I like it,” said Ali, with a twinkle in his eye. “I wish we could have the same confidence when we design our exotic—I mean innovative—financial products.”

Eddy Rojas is Director of the Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where he oversees academic programs in architectural engineering, construction engineering and construction management. Dr. Rojas holds advanced degrees in civil engineering and economics and is a registered Professional Engineer in Michigan. Throughout his academic career, he has led numerous research studies in modeling, simulation and visualization of construction engineering and management processes, construction economics and engineering education. Results of his research have been documented and disseminated in more than 85 publications.