| Abstrakt: |
In the first edition of Reinventing the Workplace, the chapter on emerging building forms focused on the design of simple, correctly configured floorplates, with considerable capacity for servicing. The character of the building, it was argued, resulted from the level of service provision, entrances, handling of the skin, location of cores, depth and configuration of floorplates and sub-sequent fit out. Less than ten years later we have seen a fundamental shift from building specification to the exploration of wider 'accommodation' offerings. Lora Nicolaou, an architect and urbanist, argues that with the agility afforded by advances in information and communications technology (ICT), organisations in future will be less about a matter of building specification, but rather an interest in 'accommodation', i.e. office space, plus tenure, value-added management services and local amenities. Generic building shells within which uses can change and a wide range of activity settings accommodated will afford the flexibility required by most fast changing organisations. Identity is less about each building shouting 'look at me', and more about the character of the area and specific setting designed within the shell to meet changing organisational needs. To meet the planning demands for more sustainable environments there is a need to use space more intensively by overlapping functions and at the same time providing greater flexibility of usage within the same building form. Lora Nicolaou argues that within the existing space types, added flexibility required can be provided by combining existing typologies to make appropriate portfolios of space within larger developments, linked with greater flexibility of planning usage, tenure arrangements, and the appropriate supporting services and estate management. To support this approach, a methodology of tenancy profiles is proposed, reflecting the mix of functions, demographic profile and business culture of each organisation. As organisations become more distributed and networked across locations, accommodation solutions will be as much about urban context and local character as the functionality of building specification. In the future, the office may draw its value as much from the city as the building in which it is housed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
