Control Room Design

When you partner with BAW Architecture, the world’s leading control room design consultants, you access unsurpassed expertise in control room design, and it all starts in one place: with your operators. Our approach is operator-centric because the day-to-day realities of how the operator functions lies at the heart of the control center. Understanding the operator’s needs—how they interface with complex systems within a high-pressure environment—is square one, and all other design decisions flow out from that central point.

30 Years of Control Room Design Expertise

Our control room (also known as an operations center, or an operations control center) design portfolio spans 30 years, and includes over 100 new-build or renovation projects completed around the globe, for clients such as Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, Fluor, and Honeywell.

The Sum of its Parts

Designing a control room is like conducting a symphony with different sections for strings, brass, woodwind and percussion. Great control room design assembles different elements into a harmonious whole. The different control room design criteria that need to be considered to optimize utility are:

• Lighting
• Glare reduction
• Acoustics
• Console design
• Furniture design
• Material finishes
• Human-machine interaction
• Fatigue mitigation
• Human factors/Ergonomics

The risk of an abnormal situation escalation is always present in a control room. A state-of-the-art control room gives the operators the ability to return the situation to normal in the shortest amount of time possible, because the human-machine interface is approached holistically. Dozens of factors are taken into account, such as the orientation of consoles, screen information, noise reduction, slip resistance, arc of reach, line of sight, clutter mitigation, manual placement—all of these have the potential to improve or degrade the operator’s reaction time. At BAW, attention is paid to understanding and optimizing each factor of the control room layout down to the finest detail. Learn more about the 12 reasons why BAW is the industry leader in control room design.

Safety and the Bottom Line in Process Control Room Design

Unsafe, unproductive work environments are in the end very costly on a number of different fronts. For example, if an offshore oil platform fails to integrate best practices to avoid an explosion, the result can be a spill. This costs money, but more importantly, it can cost lives and damage the environment. A catastrophic event, such as an oil spill, can be avoided by employing best practices in control building design. We integrate architectural, interior design and human factors elements to deliver the safest, most productive, and most durable workspaces in the petrochemical, mining, utilities and transportation industries.

The upfront investment pays off for our clients every time. Learn more about why BAW Architecture is the leading 24/7 mission-critical control building design, or contact us to start a conversation.

Control Room Design FAQs

What is “control room design” and why is it critical for mission-critical operations?
Control room design refers to the architectural, interior-design and human-factors engineering of the facility where operators monitor, control and respond to abnormal events. Great control room design integrates many factors, the goal of which is to maximize safety and increase efficiency by enabling operators to respond to abnormal situations in the smallest window of time possible. In mission-critical environments (oil & gas, utilities, mining, transportation) the design of the control room significantly impacts safety, operator performance and operational reliability.

How does BAW Architecture approach control room design differently from standard facility design?
BAW’s approach is operator-centric—they begin with the operator’s day-to-day reality: how the operator functions, interfaces with systems, handles abnormal situations. Then they integrate architecture, interior design and human-factors engineering to ensure elements like lighting, acoustics, console layout, ergonomics and finishes are optimized together. Instead of treating human-factors as an add-on, they embed it throughout the design process.

What are the key design elements that contribute to a successful control room?
Some of the critical elements include:

• Lighting and glare reduction
• Acoustics (noise control, clear speech, minimal distraction)
• Console and furniture layout (line of sight, arc of reach, operator comfort
• Material finishes, durability and maintenance-friendly design
• Human-machine interaction and ergonomics (layout, workflow, minimizing errors)

What benefits (or return on investment) can a company expect from investing in high-quality control room design?
The benefits include enhanced safety (fewer human-error incidents), improved operator performance and efficiency, reduced fatigue and turnover, and lower lifetime operational cost (maintenance, redesign, retrofit). Unsafe or unproductive work environments are in the end very costly on a number of different fronts. Additionally, designing correctly from the start (versus retrofitting later) typically yields a stronger ROI.

If we have an existing control room that needs upgrading, how should we approach the redesign using BAW’s methodology?
A good approach involves:

1. Begin with an assessment by BAW of the current facility: how operators work, what workflows exist, what problems are present.
2. Benchmark against best practices and standards (for example using ISO 11064) and identify gaps.
3. Develop schematic designs that integrate architecture, interior design and human-factors engineering concurrently—rather than treating them as separate disciplines.
4. Use an iterative design process with stakeholder engagement (operators, safety, maintenance) to refine the solution before finalizing documents.
5. After implementation, evaluate performance (operator comfort, error rates, workflow) and refine as necessary.

Please contact us to start a conversation.