Ergonomics and architectural programming: A possible articulation?

Abstract

Throughout history, the practice of architectural design for industrial buildings generally considered the criterion of square footage established by the number of occupants or machines of a specific environment as a design parameter. Large sheds are often built for the distribution of industry sectors in space, prioritizing the manufacturing sequences and sizes of equipment. Nevertheless, space needs to be considered as an important resource in the management process. One of the problems faced by architects in their professional practice is the difficulty in integrating the expected functional quality into an architectural program with their architectural designs. In fact, it has been mainly considered what is prescribed, that is, the task, disregarding the activity and its resulting problems. The hypothesis of this study sustains that, when integrating the Ergonomic Work Analysis (EWA) as an auxiliary tool in the architectural programming, it is possible to promote functional quality for the use of the building. In this perspective, this study compares the methods used in EWA and architectural programming to enrich different design processes used by architects in their daily work. The research, carried out empirically in a Brazilian food industry, whose activities, inherent to the prescribed tasks, were analyzed in a systematic way, has the purpose of adding contributions to the usual methodology of architectural design. The results indicate that the lack of activity analysis generates problems in the production flow and a layout without flexible spaces for the integration of new machines in the implementation of new products.