architecture + infrastructure consultants for real property • expert services

Space Analytics is an idea-driven consultancy. The main ideas are
• space is what real estate and architecture and urban design/planning have in common;
• spatial and related visual patterns have deep behavioral and cultural constraints often overlooked;
• when these patterns combine with non-rational human behaviors, serious decision and judgment errors are more likely.

Applying these ideas helps structure and solve a large and growing class of real estate problems. By identifying critical patterns and hidden functional defects, clients of Space Analytics have saved or gained millions in litigation and investment.

History

Space Analytics was founded in 1989 and is the first firm to use network techniques to solve functional and visual problems affecting real property interests. Early work involved problem properties (many shopping centers) and information-intense workplaces (hi-tech offices and health care). We expanded our work to include shopping streets and other public and mixed use areas. We worked on several major functional design failures including a 16,000 SF great house in a remote mountain area in the West and a resort hotel on a Pacific island. We developed our expert witness activity through access takings, premises liability and intellectual property disputes. In previous research, we used the shape-network approach to decode the spatial 'signature' of famous architects. This has since been applied in major cases involving trade dress and architectural copyright litigation. No firm does more rigorous design analysis or has a better grasp of how design affects real estate value.

Our management core connects to a network of expertise around the world.

M. Gordon Brown

Founding Director

Gordon combines real-world expertise, first rate academic credentials and innovative and critical thought. One of the first to develop and use network methods to analyze buildings and places, he has lectured widely and published dozens of scientific articles and critical reviews. Gordon has testified on Court TV, was interviewed on Public Radio's Marketplace program and was a recipient of a grant for work on public forums by the Colorado Endowment for the Humanities. He received a Homer Hoyt Advanced Studies Institute Leadership Award in 2000, received two American Real Estate Society best manuscript prizes and wrote a column for the Denver Business Journal for almost 10 years.

Currently he holds the positions of Academic Dean of Business and IT and ALDAR Dean of Business at the Higher Colleges of Technology, Abu Dhabi, UAE. From 2006 to 2009, he was Head of the Real Estate Management and Development Group, Eindhoven University of Technology in The Netherlands, one of the largest graduate real estate programs in Europe. He previously was a director of the MIT Enterprise Forum of Colorado, manager of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill’s Chicago office and a Cass Gilbert Visiting Lecturer at the University of Minnesota, College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture in 1998, as well as a Visiting Science and Engineering Research Council Fellow at the University of London in 1985.

In the 1980s, he was a professor of architecture at Illinois Institute of Technology, Arizona State University and the University of Colorado. A former competitive fencer and weekend skier, his interests in good food and essay writing vie with time for travel, hiking and canines. His degrees: BS in Communications, University of Illinois, Urbana; MBA, University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School; MSc (Architecture) (thesis distinction), University of London, Bartlett School; Doctor of Technology (higher doctorate), University of Ulster.

Tav Tabacchi

Director

Tav brings to real estate analysis an extensive background in all aspects of commercial real estate, finance, senior management and entrepeneurship.

Tav’s career began with Touche Ross & Co. in Boston as a financial and data processing consultant. Following this, he spent 10 years as an executive at SYSCO Foods in Boston and Denver moving from from Data Processing Manager, to Controller, VP Finance, Senior VP and Executive VP. At SYSCO Tav was in charge of real estate, transportation, administration and finance and was responsible for the analysis of the business and charting more profitable directions for the company. On leaving Nobel-Sysco, he bought Food Products, Inc., a specialty foods distributor serving the major supermarket chains in the Denver area. As President, Tav pushed the company to expand its product lines into general merchandise and other non-food items. At the same time he created a new pricing model for the company that resulted in higher margins.

Tav sold Food Products and started developing commercial real estate in the Denver area, including a small shopping center, an office building, a flex office/warehouse and an office park. As a commercial real estate broker he has brokered many sales and leases and worked closely with architects and engineers to redesign spaces to make them more functional. He earned a BS in Electrical Engineering at the University of Dayton and an MBA in management and computing from the University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School. Tav was a Distinguished Military Graduate at the University of Dayton and served in the Army Reserves as a Signal Officer and a Quartermaster Officer reaching the rank of Captain before retirement.

Jane Kruizenga Schade

Administrator

Jane has extensive experience in project and research administration and quality control in both educational and health care research environments. She ran a large statewide school-to-work program in Arizona and was the director of research administration for a major cancer research institute before becoming a veterinary nurse and emergency hospital administrator. In addition to her work with Space Analytics, Jane is accomplished in traditional and contemporary fiber arts. She has a BA in English from Hope College, MSEd from Moorhead State University and a PhD from Arizona State University.

Clients

Our clients have included both small and prominent, nationally-known organizations: real estate asset managers, law firms, international real estate consulting firms, real property owners, architecture firms, appraisers, R&D departments of manufacturers, non-profit organizations. This work has addressed a wide range of property types involving problems such as: public space • access takings • architectural copyright • workplaces • shopping behavior • location • branding • asset selection/disposition • design competitions • special districts • design disputes • premises liability.

Idea papers

Distressed properties? What about distressed owners.pdf
Due diligence is not enough.pdf.

Scientific and professional articles and book chapters

Brown, M. Gordon and Tjibbe Teernstra (2008), Examining investor perceptions of obsolescence and value through a behavioural economics lens, forthcoming December in Journal of European Real Estate Research.

Brown, M. Gordon (2008), Evading economic reality: real property access takings and the slippery slope of legal language, forthcoming December in International Journal of Law and Management.

Brown, M. Gordon (2008), Proximity and collaboration: measuring workplace configuration, Journal of Corporate Real Estate, 10:1, 5-26.

Witvoet, Daniel, Peter J. Vliek, M. Gordon Brown and Leonie A. M. C. van de Ven (2007), Reële opties in vastgoedontwikkeling deel 2, Property Research Quarterly, 6:4, 43-48.

Witvoet, Daniel, Peter J. Vliek, M. Gordon Brown and Leonie A. M. C. van de Ven (2007), Reële opties in vastgoedontwikkeling deel 1, Property Research Quarterly, 6:3, 35-40.

Brown, M. Gordon and Leonie van de Ven (2007), Creatieve Stad [Creative City], ch. 4 of Smeets, J. J. A. M. (ed.), 11x040, Eindhoven, NL, Trudo.

Brown, M. Gordon and Stephen Roulac (2004), Why Can't A Building Be More Like A Machine, Real Estate Issues, Counselors of Real Estate, Spring, 16-21.

Black, Roy T., M. Gordon Brown, Julian Diaz, Karen M. Gibler and Terry V. Grissom, (2003), Behavioral Research in Real Estate: A Search for the Boundaries, Journal of Real Estate Practice and Education, 6:1, 85-112.

Brown, M. Gordon (2001), Choosing a company's building design using the architectural design competition, Journal of Real Estate Research., 22:1/2, 81-106.

Brown, M. Gordon (1999), Design and Value: Spatial Form and the Economic Failure of a Mall, Journal of Real Estate Research, 17:2, 189-225.

Brown, M. Gordon (1994), Autopsy of a Shopping Center, Urban Land, Urban Land Institute, Washington, D.C., September.

Presentations

Monitoring obsolescence: due diligence for property managers