Computers: Towers with Minds of Their Own

Soaring 45 stories over downtown Dallas, the office tower called Lincoln Plaza looks like nothing more than an especially elegant variation on the modern commercial building. Mahogany granite and smoked glass combine to give it a handsome, robust exterior. Full-grown, verdant trees shade its attractive walkways, and at the apex of its triangular base a small waterfall gurgles and sparkles in the sun. Lincoln Plaza is not only beautiful -- it has brains. Computers and closed-circuit monitors check the temperature on each floor, the location of every elevator and the status of all doors (locked or unlocked). When a clerical worker began pilfering from his employer's offices, the computers identified the owner of the electronic card key that was used to enter the burglarized rooms. The suspect was quickly apprehended. Says Steven Cole, the building manager: "I was very impressed."

Welcome to the world of smart buildings, a marriage of architecture and computers that is the latest word in high-rise high tech. Walk into an office in brainy buildings and the lights go on automatically, triggered by infrared sensors that detect the slightest movement; leave and the lights shut themselves off twelve minutes later. Desktop terminals linked to a centralized computer system offer instant access to the latest stock market quotations. A sophisticated telephone system automatically routes long-distance calls along the least expensive circuits. The elevators flash the current weather reports and talk to their passengers in a low, clear tone: "Going up."

In the lobbies, computerized directories cross-list tenants by company, individuals' names and service category. Sometimes they even offer calendars of arts and sports events, airport maps, taxi phone numbers and shuttle-bus guides. One particularly futuristic tower will soon permit a tenant at any display terminal to call up a lunch menu on the screen, punch in his order and have food delivered to his desk from one of the building's restaurants.

Smart buildings have sprung up in Los Angeles (Grand Financial Plaza), Chicago (One Financial Place), Arlington, Va. (Crystal Gateway III), and Hartford (CityPlace). Others are under construction in Denver and New York City. "Tenants want their buildings as smart as their communications equipment," says Geoffrey Wharton, a partner at Tishman-Speyer Properties in New York City, which is developing a smart building for the Equitable Life Assurance Society. Says William Caffery, a technology analyst at the Gartner Group, a research firm in Stamford, Conn.: "Communications is the air conditioning of the 1980s."

The technology does not come cheap. Builders figure that electronic gadgetry and the wire and cable networks that connect them add about 2% to construction costs. Average rent at Chicago's gleaming One Financial Place, a $220 million, 40-story chrome-and-marble trade palace that looks more like a hotel than an office building, runs from $29 to $33 per sq. ft., which is 20% higher than space in the city's other top commercial buildings.