Evolution of Office Design In and Beyond the 20th Century by Steven Lin

Evolution of Office Design in and Beyond the 20th Century

Steven Hsin-Wei Lin

Evolution of Office Design in and Beyond the 20th Century

Steven Hsin-Wei Lin 130276823

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the BA Architecture Honours degree, Newcastle University, 2016.

Contents List of Illustrations

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter One: Taylorist Office 1.1 Background

1.2 The Theory

1.3 Effects on Workplace Design and Office Culture

1.4 Larkin Company Administration Building

1.5 Summary

Chapter Two: Bürolandschaft 2.1 Background

2.2 The New Approach

2.3 Effects on Workplace Design and Office Culture

2.4 A Bürolandschaft Office and Differences from a Taylorist Office 31 2.5 Summary

Chapter Three: Post Bürolandschaft 3.1 Background

3.2 Disadvantages of Bürolandschaft

3.3 Reaction Against Bürolandschaft

3.4 New Solution

3.5 Centraal Beheer Building

3.6 Summary

Chapter Four: IT Office 4.1 Background

4.2 Effects of Personal Computer on Workplace Design and Businesses 54 4.3 Effects of Internet on Workplace Design and Businesses

4.4 Flexible Office

4.5 Interpolis Head Office

4.6 Summary

Chapter Five: Todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Office 5.1 Background

5.2 Reaction Against Telecommuting

5.3 Googleplex

5.4 Summary

Conclusion

Bibliography

List of illustrations Cover http://eloisemoorehead.com/post/12579254896/interior-ofthe-larkin-administration-building http://artworksjournal.com/there-s-no-place-like-work/ Chapter 1 Fig.1:http://www.ericssonhistory.com/places/stockholm/Mid sommarkransen--Taylorism-as-architecture/ Fig.2:http://www.officemuseum.com/photo_gallery_1910s% 20p.%20B.htm Fig.3: http://emergingyouth.com/tag/doug-pagitt/ Fig.4: http://www.buffalohistory.com/the-larkinbuilding.html#.Vl9Db_nhCUk Fig.5:http://www.carusostjohn.com/media/artscouncil/histo ry/taylorist/index_02.html Fig.6:http://www.savewright.org/wright_chat/viewtopic.php ?p=41810&sid=78cbb240ffa58c3def79294ee42c2138 Fig. 7: http://www.buffalohistorygazette.net/2011/10/larkinadministration-building-of.html Chapter 2 Fig.1: https://uk.pinterest.com/george_valdes/burolandschaft/ Fig.2: http://www.stylepark.com/en/news/how-the-office-

became-what-it-is-today/335695

Fig.3: http://www.johndesmond.com/blog/design/architectfurniture-designer/ Fig.4: John F. Pile, Open Office Planning: A Handbook for Interior Designers and Architects (New York: Whitney Library of Design, 1978), p. 28.

Fig.5: ibid Fig.6: http://publik.tuwien.ac.at/files/PubDat_215835.pdf Fig. 7: http://www.stylepark.com/en/news/how-the-officebecame-what-it-is-today/335695 Chapter 3 Fig.1: http://www.divaportal.se/smash/get/diva2:349960/FULLTEXT01.pdf Fig.2: http://www.tengbom.se/en-US/projects/140/thecanon-building-in-satra Fig.3: ibid Fig.4:https://www.politesi.polimi.it/bitstream/10589/103923 /3/Book%20-%20History%20of%20the%20Office.pdf Fig. 5: http://www.dezeen.com/2011/12/06/key-projects-byherman-hertzberger/ Fig. 6: ibid Fig. 7: ibid Fig. 8, by author Fig. 9, by author Fig. 10, by author 2

Fig. 11, by author

Chapter 4 Fig. 1:http://www.oldcomputers.net/ibm5150.html Fig. 2:http://www.slideshare.net/Ruddles/interpolis-20 Fig. 3: ibid Fig. 4: http://www.bdonline.co.uk/interpolis-hq-kho-liang-ieassociates/3077483.article Fig. 5:http://www.building.co.uk/interpolis-hq-kho-liang-ieassociates/3077483.article Fig. 6: ibid Chapter 5 Fig. 1:http://inhabitat.com/tag/googleplex/ Fig. 2:http://imgs.abduzeedo.com/files/paul0v2/googleheadquarters/googleplex-01.jpg Fig. 3: http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,194784 4_2013328,00.html Fig. 4: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article2100879/Google-offers-rare-glimpse-inside-CaliforniaGoogleplex-headquarters.html

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Dr. Naveen Hamza for her guidance and support throughout the completion of this dissertation. I would also express my great appreciation to Alex Chatten, Kishan Adoni, Lucy Brotherton and Helen Burnham for proof reading my dissertation.

Introduction From London and New York to Tokyo and Hong Kong, one thing is apparent in almost all of the major cities in the world, that office buildings dominate the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s skyline. Office buildings represent economic strength and signs of a developed country. Many office buildings even become some of the most popular tourist attractions, such as the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur and the Empire State building in New York. In the United Kingdom, there were an estimate of 28,143,000 jobs classed within the Service industry between May and June 20151. These will largely involve working within an office. A full time worker in the UK works 37.5 hours per week according to the latest statistics2. The office is where these people spend the second largest amount of their time, ranked after their home. The high demand for office buildings also shows its importance, according the London Office Crane Survey report from winter 2015, which stated that the total volume of office space under construction in London was above the 10-year average and at the highest level since 2008.3 This increased in office building 1

Office For National Statistics, UK Labour Market, September 2015(Office For National Statistics, 16 September 2015) <http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/lms/labour-market-statistics/september2015/statistical-bulletin.html> [accessed 28 September 2015]. 2 ibid 3 Deloitte Real Estate London Office, London Office Crane Survey - Construction Activity Boost, 2015. Available at: http://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/uk/Documents/realestate/london-crane-survey-report-winter-2015.pdf [Accessed 29 November 2015].

construction is to accommodate the expansion of existing companies, or any newly formed businesses. Both are the bedrocks for the economy of this country and the world. In a study conducted by Michael Brill and his associates at the Buffalo Organization for Social and Technological Innovation (BOSTI), 1985, they found: “Objective, statistical data relating office space, enclosure, layout, flexibility, privacy and appearance to environmental satisfaction, ease of communication, job satisfaction, and job performance”4. If the true purpose of all office buildings is to accommodate employees, maximise their job performance and the overall productivity of the entire organisation, why do office buildings constructed during different eras exhibit such different and diverse designs? This is clearly evident when we compare the assembly line-like office in the 1920s and the almost holiday resort-like Google office or the numerous skyscraper offices that we see today. Historical changes to office buildings can be the result of many possible factors, such as different financial or political backgrounds during the time of design, discovery of new materials and building techniques, or the changing of the nature of the business itself. The aim of this dissertation is to investigate the major evolutions that office design has undergone since the 20th Century. The reasons and rationales behind each of the 4

Peter B Brandt, Arthur M Gensler and Peter B. Br, Office Design (New York: Whitney Library of Design, 1992), pp. 91 – 92.

major changes will also be assessed and compared. Understanding the development in office space design and its causes will help to inform future trends and design philosophies. This dissertation is divided to 5 sections, each reviewing a different time period: Chapter 1: 1900 – 1950 Chapter 2: 1950 – 1970 Chapter 3: 1970 – 1980 Chapter 4: 1980 – Today Chapter 5: Today The word “office” originated from the Latin word officium which means the performance of a task and is defined as “A room, set of rooms, or building used as a place of business for non-manual work.” 5 However, for the purpose of this dissertation, the word office will only refer to a space where mainly administration work in the service industry is carried out. For example, advertising agencies, cooperation headquarters and technology companies. Renowned architect Francis Duffy described office design as having gone through three major waves of change: Taylorist, Social Democratic and the Networked office6. The three 5

‘Office’, Oxford Dictionary (Oxford University Press) <http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/office> [accessed 2 December 2015]. 6 Jeremy Myerson, The Handbook of Interior Architecture and Design, ed. by Graeme Brooker and Lois Weinthal (London: Berg Publishers, 2013), p. 218.

waves outlined by Duffy will be used as a guideline and this dissertation will begin by assessing office design during the Taylorist era. The Social Democratic office will be reviewed in chapters 2 and 3, and the Networked office will be included in chapters 4 and 5.

Taylorist Office Scientific Management Theory developed by Frederick Taylor was implanted into production lines, and later into the office environment.

Background This chapter reviews the office designs of the early 20th Century, with particular focus on how Scientific Management Theory impacted the business world and the subsequent ways in which offices were designed. In the early 20th Century, the second industrial revolution brought inventions and developments, such as better steel and iron production process, railways, electrifications and telephones7. These developments positively impacted the economy and also provided the tools for many businesses to expand. The advance in telecommunications enabled the business to distinguish its administration elements from the production aspects in separate locations, meaning office employees no longer had to work with the noise and heat that machinery brings. Better telecommunication capabilities combined with the lower transportation costs that the development in railway brings, also resulted in rapid market

Joel Mokyr and Robert H Strotz, The Second Industrial Revolution, 1870-1914, August 1998 <http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~jmokyr/castronovo.pdf> [accessed 20 January 2016].

expansion by businesses, providing more administration work for the employees8. The Theory In the 1880s an American mechanical engineer named Frederick Winslow Taylor - aimed to increase the efficiency of production workers, and he developed the Scientific Management Theory as the means to achieve this. Prior to the development of Taylor’s theory, there were no systems in place to ensure that the most suitable employees were selected and that these employees were working to their highest capacities. This resulted in businesses investing more capital in its personnel than they should. Taylor outlined the four key principles of Scientific Management Theory as follows: 1) Develop a science for each element of a worker’s labour which would replace the previous “rule of thumb” method. In essence, this involves the use of science, engineering and ergonomics to find or develop the most efficient way of working. 2) Scientifically select, train, teach and advance the worker to improve the previous tradition of workers deciding his or her own work and training themselves to the best of their ability. 3) Increasing cooperation between management and the workers to ensure that all of the work achieved is in accordance with the science of the work developed previously. 8

Nikil Saval, Cubed: The Secret History of the Workplace (United States: Anchor Books, 2015), pp. 36-40

4) Appropriately divide the labour amongst the workers and management in accordance with the nature of the works. The management would be responsible for the planning of the work and further training, allowing the worker to apply themselves fully to their labour in turn.9 Under Taylor’s management theory, operations were broken down to the most fundamental elements, each of these were studied and standardised so that it was done in the most efficient, thus economical way possible. The motions of even the simplest task, such as opening a letter, were closely scrutinised in order to develop the quickest and most efficient way of completing it. Prior to the development of Taylor’s system, “The management success depends almost entirely on the personal judgement and initiative of the workman, (their hard work, good will and ingenuity) and it is indeed rarely attained”10. Comparatively, under the Scientific Management Theory, “Each operation of work was broken down into the most efficient combination (...) And once the work was so scientifically plotted, there could be no dispute about how hard one should work or the pay one should receive” 11

Frederick Winslow Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management (United States: Dover Publications, 1911), p 15 10 Ibid, p. 21 11 Linda Stewart Gatter, ‘The Office: An Analysis of the Evolution of a Workplace’ (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1982) <http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/29842> [accessed 30 November 2015]. p. 19

Fig. 1, Factory implementing the Scientific Management Theory

Effects on Workplace Design and Office Culture Before discussing how Taylorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s theory influenced the design of the workplace, an understanding of the works performed by employees of that era must be attained. In the early 20th Century, the majority of the workforce was made up of clerical workers; each employee was responsible for the most fundamental and minimal task that was performed on their respective desks repetitively.12 According to the third rule of Taylorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s theory, management must ensure that the tasks performed by workers are in accordance to the standardised

Nikil Saval, pp. 46-48

method, thus constant supervision would be required. To increase the efficiency with which the simple and repetitive tasks were completed, all distractions must be removed to allow employeesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; sole focus to be directed at their work. To aid constant supervision, workers are sat in a large open space, all facing the direction of the supervisor. They are very often positioned in rows with spaces between them to minimise the distraction between colleagues. This layout is forcefully redolent of the layout used in a classroom, where students are also sat in rows with spaces between them, facing the direction of the teacher. This layout increase productivity for students and this efficiency is, in turn, translated to the employees; the minimal distraction enables them to direct their focus onto their independent tasks. Moreover, the benefits of all individuals facing the supervisor or teacher are multiple. Not only does it make the supervision process easier, it also makes the individual work harder in the knowledge that they are being watched.13 Further to this is the highly economical nature of this layout. It allows the minimum number of supervisors to supervise the maximum number of employees, reducing the money spent on employing supervisors, as well as using the minimum amount of space to accommodate the maximum amount of employees, reducing the money invested on office space for businesses. 14

Inaki Abalos and Juan Herreros, pp. 180 - 183.

Jurriaan Van-Meel, The European Office: Office Design and National

Context (Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 2000).

Fig 2, Order Entry Department, Sears, Roebuck & Co, 1913

Fig. 3, Traditional Classroom Layout

As the works being done by the employees consisted of simple, repetitive tasks, they were not as highly valued by their employers as they are today. This is also reflected in the workplace design, whereby the main focus was on aiding supervision and increasing efficiency. An employee’s wellbeing and comfort was not a main concern when designing a workplace. This had subsequent effects when designing the exterior of the workplace, as employees’ wellbeing was deemed not as important as increasing their productivity. For example, a view of the outside was considered a distraction; the purpose of the windows was limited to the provision of light. This is shown in Fig. 2, where the workers are actually facing away from the windows. The Taylorist office was also applied to offices occupying high rise buildings, they were an even more compacted version. Prior to the development of fluorescent lighting and air conditioning, the office was still partially dependent on natural light. After fluorescent lighting was commercially produced in 1938 and HVAC systems (Heating, Ventilation & Air Conditioning) in the late 40’s, the wider availability of these technologies allowed building depth to increase as buildings became independent from the outside world15. Increasing building depth was more economical and was essential for the next wave of change in office design.

Inaki Abalos and Juan Herreros, p. 193

Larkin Company Administration Building The Larkin Company Administration Building in Buffalo, New York will be investigated as a case study. This building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright epitomises how Taylorism was translated and applied in office design. The construction of the new Larkin Administration Building was completed in 1906.16 The office was occupied by 1800 employees17 and the influence of Taylor’s Scientific Management Theory is evident in many aspects of the design and layout. “The main office floor was open plan, with space for all the officials of the company in the very centre of the structure (…) employees were thus all grouped together in one space and its overlooking balconies.”18 As shown in Fig.4, the Larkin building is a large, open-plan space to accommodate its employees. The managers (including Mr Larkin and his sons) have private offices overlooking the employees, which was highly beneficial in a workplace that was processing 5000 orders per day.19 The design of the new office, coupled with the application of Taylor’s management theory, allowed the business to process high volumes of paper in the most efficient way

Frank Lloyd Wright: The Masterworks, ed. by David Larkin and Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer, 1st edn (London: Thames and Hudson in Association with the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, 1993). 17 Linda Stewart Gatter, ‘The Office: An Analysis of the Evolution of a Workplace’ (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1982) <http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/29842> [accessed 30 November 2015]. 18 Larkin and Pfeiffer, p.68 19 Morgan Lovell Architects, ‘The Evolution of Office Design’ (Morgan Lovell) <http://www.morganlovell.co.uk/articles/the-evolution-of-office-design> [accessed 30 November 2015].

possible. The large open space featured in the design also allowed the office to be fitted with more desks, facilitating a greater number of workers to be put in the space, maximising efficiency as well as aiding the managers to supervise more easily. To minimise distraction the windows are not at eye level and storage space for paperwork is the only thing positioned in the workers’ eye line, shown in Fig. 5. Subsequently, the design of the Larkin office was extremely successful, “In 1907, an article in Business Man’s Magazine referred to it as a model administration building”20

Fig. 4, Exterior of the Larkin Administration Building

Jurriaan Van-Meel, The European Office: Office Design and National

Context (Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 2000). P.27

Fig. 5, Floor Plan of the Larkin Administration Building

Fig. 6, Interior of the Larkin Administrative Building

Fig. 7, Interior of the Larkin Administrative Building

Summary There are clear similarities between Fig. 1, 2, 3, 6 and 7. All of which are in a large, open space with minimal or no partitions, and all are arranged neatly in rows and grids. The only differences are the tools that the individual uses, i.e. typewriters on the desks in the office instead of the machines on the work stations in the factory and notebook 21

and pen in the classroom. The Taylorist layout continued its success when it was applied into the design of offices, as a result of the nature of the manufacturing and administrative jobs being quite similar in that era. Both production and administrative workers performed a repetitive task and required very little communication between workers. However, should the nature of the tasks performed by employees change, the Taylorist layout may no longer be as efficient as it was. That is, the efficiency of this layout is directly and intrinsically linked to the tasks in hand.

Bürolandschaft A new office design approach developed by the Schenelle brothers to increase the efficiency of communications within the office.

Background The developments in fluorescent lighting and HVAC systems contributed to enabling the use of a fully glass curtain wall. Prior to these developments, using a fully glass exterior skin would result in problems such as overheating in the interior. Fluorescent lighting was able to illuminate the interior without producing as much heat as its incandescent predecessor. Heat gained from the lighting and the glass façade could also be removed by HVAC systems, providing the glazed exterior that architects had longed for. They have enabled increase in floor, which proved to be essential in the development that this chapter will discuss.

The New Approach The 1950s heralded the most significant changes in office design since the Taylorist office, and the men behind this changes were the two German brothers; Eberhard and Wolfgang Schnelle. The Schnelle brothers were heads of a management consultant firm – The Quickborner Team, based in the suburbs of Hamburg. The Schnelle brothers realised

that the conventional office design could no longer meet the demands of the office work of that time21, and “In 1959, the Quickborner team analysed the work patterns of the office organisation and pointed to the need for better communication supported by the design of the office.”22 In 1963, the Quickborner team came up with a new approach to office design called “Bürolandschaft”, which translates to “office landscape”. Unlike the previous Taylorist approach, where the main focus of the design was solely on standardisation of the tasks and productivity. The Schnelle brothers “Tied the advantages of the American open plan office and the ideas of American theoreticians like Douglas McGregor and made human relations the focus of attention. The arrangement of workplace in open plan layout was determined by workflow processes in the respective organisations.”23 The work flow process, mainly involved the transferal of information from one individual to another, and since emails did not exist at that time, the workflow process emphasised: “The basis on which office work was organised: paper. The search for the most efficient way to improve the circulation of paperwork within the office, which meant redistributing

Jurriaan Van-Meel, The European Office: Office Design and National Context (Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 2000). p.33 22 John Worthington Reinventing the Workplace , pp. 28 – 29. 23 Office Buildings, A Design Manual; Entwurfsatlas Bürobau, Engl. Ed., ed. by Rainer Hascher, 1st edn (Switzerland: Birkhauser Verlag AG, 2002), p. 19.

workstations according to the different ways in which their paperwork was connected.”24 The Quickborner team realised that paperwork no longer flowed in one direction only, from the management to the workers, but in several different directions, between various workers and departments. Thus, “Personnel would be placed at workstations grouped strictly according to working needs for easy communication.”25 This approach aimed to make the workplace more efficient by reducing the time spent and the distance travelled by workers and their paperwork. The planning process of a Bürolandschaft office would work like the following: 1) A survey would be carried out to determine the level of communications that takes place between workers and departments. Also, the space that each worker would require to work would also be determined based on the nature of the role and the equipment used. 2) An interaction chart would be produced from the data of the survey; this would present and accurate level of interaction that takes place between workgroups.

Inaki Abalos and Juan Herreros, p. 198. John F. Pile, Open Office Planning: A Handbook for Interior Designers and Architects (New York: Whitney Library of Design, 1978), p. 23. 25

3) Using this interaction chart, departments would be placed adjacently to those with which they have the highest level of interaction.26

Fig. 1, Interaction Chart

Pile, pp.23 - 24

Effects on Workplace Design and Office Culture Using the Bürolandschaft approach, the distance travelled and the time spent for the most regular communications to take place is dramatically reduced. This approach also established a blatant difference with a Taylorist office, according to which the management still worked in their private offices. In a Bürolandschaft office, there are neither private offices nor rooms, and the Quickborner team had strong reasoning for this. Firstly, the existence of small offices within the large open plan space would make allocating space for different departments a lot harder. Secondly, by removing all private offices and partitions, “communication was able to flow freely without being hindered by walls or doors.” 27 Lastly, in the absence of private offices, the managers would be placed close to the staff in their department. This encourages easy and informal contact between the manager and the staff,28 “Eliminating the hierarchical order and uniting the entire staff from its head down to the last typist.”29

Jurriaan Van-Meel, The European Office: Office Design and National Context (Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 2000).p.34 28 Pile, p. 27 29Henn, W. “Large-size Office and the Architect” in Baumesiter, July 1962, pp 655 660

Additionally, there was an improvement in communications and efficiency,

Fig. 2, Interior of the Stadtwerke Karlsruhe Bürolandschaft Office, 1974

“the express goal of the Quickborner team is to create an office design that not only meets the requirements for planning environment, and staff working conditions at the present moment, but during the entire life of the building.”30 This is achieved by designing an office that involves enough flexibility to accommodate any organisational change or new 30

Inaki Abalos and Juan Herreros, p. 198.

technologies This is another major difference between a Taylorist and BĂźrolandschaft office; Within a Taylorist office, furniture was designed to be immobile and inflexible, they were heavy and hard to move, and were even bolted to the floor. Whereas in a BĂźrolandschaft office, all furniture were designed to be lightweight and hence easily movable, this meant the office was flexible to change without disrupting other office activities.31 The difference is clearly evident when comparing Fig.2 and 3.

Fig. 3, Furniture used in the Larkin Administration Building

Jurriaan Van-Meel, The European Office: Office Design and National Context (Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 2000). p.34

A Bürolandschaft Office and Differences from a Taylorist Office The first office that the Quickborner team applied the Bürolandschaft approach to was for the Bertelsmann Publishing Company, at Guttersloh, Germany in 1960.32 The office “Consisted of a rectangular open floor with removable screens and lightweight furniture as the main structuring elements. Wall to wall carpets, ceiling treatment and screens with acoustical surfaces had to control the noise.”33 The difference between a Bürolandschaft office and a traditional office is shown clearly when comparing their floor plans (Fig. 6 and 7). There is comparatively more structure within a Taylorist office; all the desks are arranged neatly in rows. When studying the Bürolandschaft office, there may appear to be a lack of order and the desks are just placed randomly. In fact, apart from increasing the efficiency of communications as previously outlined, “Different groups are deliberately oriented at shifted angels to help visually suggest their differentiation (…) and lines of sight and the possibilities of distraction often dictates work station positions and angles. Besides a vast unbroken areas need the irregularity to avoid the monotonous and

John Worthington Reinventing the Workplace pp. 28 – 29. Jurriaan Van-Meel, The European Office: Office Design and National Context (Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 2000).p.34 33

dehumanising effect of the of the endless rows of orderly desksâ&#x20AC;? 34

Fig. 4, the DuPont Office applying BĂźrolandschaft layout

Fig. 5, an office with a traditional layout occupying the same building

Pile, p. 27

Another feature that sets the Bürolandschaft approach apart from the Taylorist is its size. According to the original guidelines developed by the Quickborner team, a space best suited for the Bürolandschaft approach would be large, open and unencumbered. The minimum number of desired staff in one space would be 100.35 Thus, the minimum depth for the Bürolandschaft office was 18 metres, which was the maximum depth achieved in the open plan office previously.36 As a result of the technological advances mentioned previously, the problems caused by deep floor plans, such as inadequate lighting, ventilation and facilities, were no longer applicable. Bürolandschaft offices were independent from the exterior environment, which had been a factor for the office typology of previous Taylorist offices. 37 Bürolandschaft not only improved the working condition for the staff by installing rest areas and green plants, it also, to some extent, altered the culture of the businesses that occupied the space. This is a prime example of how design can affect the people’s behaviour and psychology. The openness of Bürolandschaft and the removal of private offices encouraged interaction between management and staff and there is a subsequent divergence in this relationship in comparison to those in a Taylorist office. The carefully designed office no longer viewed the workers only as a single production unit, but as a collection of individuals, all of which to be a valued part of the company. After the Quickborner team finished their first Bürolandschaft office in Guttersloh, the concept soon 35

Pile, p. 31 Inaki Abalos and Juan Herreros, p. 201 37 Francis Duffy, The Changing Workplace (London: Architecture Design and Technology Press, 1992), p. 10. 36

became fashionable over Europe as the result of visits by architects and clients, as well as articles, and magazines38. “All parties involved in office design reacted enthusiastically. For architects, it presented a formal solution that was radically different from conventional office types. The business community in its term was charmed by the fact that the landscape was cost efficient and progressive at the same time (.) from the user’s point of view, with its spacious layouts, wall to wall carpets and the rest areas it provided, it was a welcome deviation from the austere white collar factories of previous decades”39 40 41

Fig. 6, Interior of the Bertelsmann Publishing Company

Jurriaan Van-Meel, The European Office: Office Design and National Context (Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 2000). p.36 39Eric D. Sundstrom and Mary Grehl Sundstrom, Work Places: The Psychology of the Physical Environment in Offices and Factories(Cambridge, Ma: Cambridge University Press, 1986). 40 C Baldry, ‘The Social Construction of Office Space’, International Labour Review, 136, 365–78. 41 Jurriaan Van-Meel, The European Office: Office Design and National Context (Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 2000). p.36

Fig. 7, Floor plan of the Bertelsmann Publishing Company

Summary The success of the Bürolandschaft approach in the 50’s and 60’s is partly as a consequence of the changing nature of work carried out within the office. There was a distinct reduction in the number of workers who were performing the same repetitive tasks that required very little or no thinking at all in comparison to the Taylorist era. ‘Knowledge work’, which involved workers being required to think and apply their knowledge and experience, began to emerge. This meant that workers may be responsible for more than one task. This, alongside the new management theory proposed by McGregor, altered the ways in which management viewed 35

the employees; employees were slightly more valued than before. McGregor proposed an alternative management theory termed “Theory Y”, he argued that if given the correct environment, employees could find pleasure in work “As natural as play or rest”42 and that “Management need to be open to recognising a junior staff’s individual initiative, subtly encouraging him towards realising his individual goals rather than terrorizing him with the fear of discipline.”43 To create such an environment, constant supervision became less common and was replaced by a newfound consideration of employees’ wellbeing and comfort. This is evidenced by the creation of various break areas that are positioned around the office. Bürolandschaft created vastly improved offices that were beyond the wildest expectations of employees accustomed to the Taylorist era. However, like all design solutions, there were limitations in its success, and these issues will be addressed in the following chapter.

Douglas McGregor, The Human Side of Enterprise (New York: McGraw-Hill Companies, The, 2005), p. 12. 43 Nikil Saval, p. 191.

Post Bürolandschaft Different office designs arose to combat the disadvantages of Bürolandschaft and to perfect the workplace

Background In the 1970s the popularity of Bürolandschaft offices faded, this was the result of a few different reasons. Firstly, in 1973 the Arab oil producers imposed an embargo against the United States and its allies for supporting Israel in the Yom Kippur war against Egypt. The price of crude oil rose from $3 per barrel to $12 per barrel44. This also resulted in higher energy costs Heating and lighting the large open planned office that was the main feature of Bürolandschaft became more expensive and uneconomical to do. Secondly and more importantly, the disadvantages of Bürolandschaft were realised.

Disadvantages of Bürolandschaft “Surveys indicated that employees disliked it because of unpleasant temperature variations, draughts, low humidity,

Terry Macalister, ‘Background: What Caused the 1970s Oil Price Shock?’, The Guardian (The Guardian, 20 May 2014) <http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/mar/03/1970s-oil-price-shock> [accessed 19 December 2015].

unacceptable noise levels, poor natural lighting, lack of visual contact with the outside, and lack of natural ventilation”45. The Quickborner team claimed that by applying Bürolandschaft to office designs, efficiency would increase as the result of improvement in communications between departments and between staff and management. However, the Quickborner team failed to realise the variety and differences that existed in organisations. Some organisations did indeed benefited from the improvement in communications, however “Not all organisations were so communication intensive: ’office landscaping appeared to offer unlimited freedom but in fact created a whole series of problems in planning and in maintaining surprisingly fragile layouts and in defining spaces for groups of office workers within endless office floors.”46

Reactions Against Bürolandschaft Continental Europe and the Anglo-American world took different paths in office designs when it became apparent that “the disadvantages of working in open-plan layouts – lack of privacy, no daylight, high noise levels – out weighted the advantages of the freedom of informality.”47 In 1976, Mitbestimmungsgesetz (Codetermination Act) was passed in 45

H Kammerer, ‘From Open Plan to Individual Offices’, Baumeister, 82 (1985), 17– 27. 46 John Worthington Reinventing the Workplace, p.30 47 Thomas Arnold, Office Buildings, A Design Manual; p. 20.

Germany that enforced organisations to give the employees’ representatives the right to sit on the supervisory broad of directors of that organisation. Similar laws were also passed in the Netherlands, Sweden and Italy. This meant that user feedbacks and satisfaction played a larger role than ever in these Continental European countries as employees became more and more influential within their organisations. Using this newly gained right, the employees made clear their rejection towards Bürolandschaft48, as it “Generally did not provide well for individual concerns for privacy, environmental control and personal identity.”49

New Solutions Different office design approaches were then used to combat the personal liberties lost in the Bürolandschaft office. One of them saw the return of the cellular office, in Sweden “It became a common practice to give every employee a private office with individual climate control, daylight and an outside view”50. “Regardless of their rank, employees get the same amount of space, privacy, or offices”51. Individual cellular offices did indeed solve some of the problems that were caused in a Bürolandschaft office, individual users had the freedom to customise the 48

Jurriaan Van-Meel, The European Office: Office Design and National Context (Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 2000). P.38 49 John Worthington, Reinventing the Workplace, p.30 50 Jurriaan Van-Meel, The European Office: Office Design and National Context P.38 51 ibid P.99

environment in which they worked to some degree. Yet, it was still far from perfect, as it resulted in employees feeling isolated.52 In seek of balancing interaction between employees and their personal liberties. A new office design approach known as combi office came to light in 1978 when Tengbom Architects designed the Canon office building in Sätra53. This design approach aimed to “Combine the advantages of the open-plan layout, i.e. the possibility of uncomplicated communication, with the cell-like office.”54 In a combi office, every employee still retains the right to their personal liberties and work in their individual cellular offices. The cellular offices however, are located next to the façade and thus result in an open space in the centre. This open space would be illuminated by natural daylight passing through the floor to ceiling glass walls of the cellular offices as well as artificial lighting, and the open space would be used as a communal area, for meetings, photocopying machines and storage. The glass to ceiling glass wall of the cellular office enables the employee to work free of the distraction from the communal space by simply closing the door, but they would still have visual contact with other employees outside. 55 The combi office approach dramatically 52

Eric D. Sundstrom and Mary Grehl Sundstrom, Work Places: The Psychology of the Physical Environment in Offices and Factories(Cambridge, Ma: Cambridge University Press, 1986). 53 The Canon Building in Sätra’, 2014 <http://www.tengbom.se/enUS/projects/140/the-canon-building-in-satra> [accessed 4 January 2016]. 54 Thomas Arnold, p. 20. 55 Martin Kleibrank, In Detail: Work Environments: Spatial Concepts Usage Strategies Communications, ed. by Christian Schittich (Basel: Birkhauser Verlag AG, 2011), p. 13.

reduce the sense of isolation caused by using only cellular offices.

Fig. 1, Floor plan of the Canon combi office in SĂ¤tra

Fig. 2, Interior of the Canon office, showing the rooms on the faรงade side

Fig. 3, Interior of the Canon office, showing the central communal area. 43

In the Anglo – American world, Bürolandschaft never enjoyed as much of its success as it once did in Continental Europe. The reason was due to the office building market culture of the time. Unlike most Continental European companies who very often build their own office to use. In the UK, less than 20% of office buildings were actually used by its owner, which contrasts greatly against the almost 65% in the Netherlands.56 57 Since the end user was not directly involved in the design process themselves, they had very little or no opportunity to integrate approaches such as Bürolandschaft into the office layout. The companies that had the opportunity to try out the Bürolandschaft office, also resulted in user dissatisfaction from its employees for the same reasons as Continental European users. However, as the UK employees did not enjoy the same privilege of being on the supervisory board like their Continental European counterparts, employees’ dissatisfaction had very little effect. Luckily, the management also rejected the Bürolandschaft office as they did not enjoy losing their privacy and the luxury and status of their private offices. 58 The new approach that arose was also a combi office, with alterations from the one used in Continental Europe. The private cellular offices along the façade of the building are only reserved for the management and again became a sign of status and the return of the hierarchical culture. The employees worked in the open space again, but with the introduction of a specially designed office furniture system, 56

Hugh Krall, ‘Offices: The Issues Related’, Built Environment, 1 (1972), 468–69. L. Bak, Kantoorprofiel: Struktuur En Ontwikkeling Van De Kantorensektor (Van Loghum Slaterus, 1980). 58 Jurriaan Van-Meel, The European Office: Office Design and National Context P.42 57

that aimed to provide the user with some degree of acoustic isolation and privacy without hindering the free flow of communications. This furniture system, still wide spread today, are cubicles. They can be arranged and laid out in accordance to the needs of each organisation.59

Centraal Beheer Building From all the solutions that arose after the fading of Bürolandschaft in the aims of balancing the employees’ personal liberties and the free flow of communication within the office. One of the most unique was the Centraal Beheer building in Apeldoorn, designed by the Dutch architect Herman Hertzberger. The management understood the link between employees’ environment and their productivity, so when the building was commissioned in 1968 user satisfaction and wellbeing was in the heart of the design process. Which is demonstrated in the brief given to Hertzberger, “It should be a place where 1000 people can feel at home”60“they (the employees) must have the feeling of being part of a working community without being lost in the crowd.”61

Thomas Arnold, p. 20. Robertus Dettingmeijer, Adriaan Wessel Reinink and Juliette Roding,Architectural History. A Social Science? (Utrecht, Kunsthistorisch Instituut der Rijksuniversiteit, 1977), p. 104. 61 Gert Staal, Between Dictate and Design - the Architecture of Office Buildings (Uitgeverij 010 Publishers, 1987). 60

In other words, a comfortable environment that provides enough privacy to allow employees to concentrate on their work when it is required, but still open enough for communications between staff of different departments or between staff and management to take place. To achieve this, Hertzberger’s solution was to use concrete cubes of 9 metres by 9 metres as the building blocks of the design. The building consists of 56 non enclosed cubes that are interlinked by walkways, atria and communal areas.62 These cubes will each accommodate around 10 employees and they were encouraged to make their workplace their own by decorating the cube with plants, furniture or decorations from their homes.63As each cube was only occupied by a small number of employees and there are thresholds that separate different cubes, the acoustic and privacy problem caused by the open plan office was brought down to a minimum. It provides the employee with visual contact with other employees within their cube and to a degree with other cubes the sense of isolation caused by cellular offices was addressed. Duffy stated that “Hertzberger has solved brilliantly the problem of using the building shell to define but not enclose units of space. This problem has been central to office design…”

‘Office Building Centraal Beheer’, Architects’ Journal Building Library<http://www.ajbuildingslibrary.co.uk/projects/display/id/5044> [accessed 12 January 2016]. 63 Jurriaan Van-Meel, The European Office: Office Design and National Context P.39

However, Duffy argued that its achievement was an uneconomical use of space, and that the same result could have been achieved “Without quite such vigorously articulated and presumably expensive architecture”64

Fig. 4, Floor plan of the Centraal Beheer Building

Francis Duffy, The Changing Workplace (London: Architecture Design and Technology Press, 1992), pp. 104 – 113.

Fig. 5, Exterior of the Centraal Beheer

Fig. 6, Interior of the Centraal Beheer 48

Fig. 7, Interior of the Centraal Beheer

Summary Whether a more economical design could have achieved the same result as Hertzberger’s Centraal Beheer does not undermine its importance. For the first time in office design, the employees’ satisfaction and wellbeing was actually considered and played a central role in the design process. It became clear that management’s view of employees has changed dramatically since the Taylorist days, employees were no longer just a single production unit but an essential part of the business and should be treated accordingly. This change of view was the result of the varying role of employees and the nature of their duties. Fewer employees were carrying out routine and simple tasks such as typewriting, instead, more and more were becoming responsible for what American economists, Peter Drucker and Fritz Machlup called knowledge work.65 The nature of the role requires the employee to think, collaborate and apply their own knowledge, which is also reflected by the design of their workplace.

Jeremy Myerson, The Handbook of Interior Architecture and Design, ed. by Graeme Brooker and Lois Weinthal (London: Berg Publishers, 2013), p. 217.

Fig 8, Taylorist Office

Fig. 9, BÃ¼rolandschaft Office 51

Fig. 10, Cellular Office

Fig. 11, Combi Office

IT Office Effects technological advances in IT have had on the business world and the design of the workplace

Background As indicated in previous chapters, the changes made to workplace design were mainly due to new management systems, improving communications and user dissatisfaction. This chapter, however, will explore alternative influences, discussing how new technologies such the Personal Computer (PC) and internet became the driving force behind the change in workplace design.

Effects of Personal Computer on Workplace Design and Businesses In August 1981, IBM introduced the first Personal Computer (PC) the IBM 5150.66 Computers had their place in the office environment prior to the IBM 5150, but it was only installed in the computer room and thus had little effect on the design of the office. PCs, on the other hand, had a greater impact on office buildings, as it changed the way work was completed, and was required to be at the desks of almost every employee in the office. A few changes in the office building were needed when such a large number of PCs were installed 66

â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;IBM Archives: The Birth of the IBM PCâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, 2003 <https://www03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/pc25/pc25_birth.html> [accessed 13 January 2016].

for the following reasons. Firstly, the PCs and their monitors generated a large amount of heat, thus ventilation within the office building became a more prevalent issue than before. Secondly, the PCs would require a lot of cabling and services, and may require raised floor or suspended ceilings to accommodate them.67 PCs replaced the typewriters in the office, but had limited functions at their early stage. Consequently, they had very little impact on the design of the workplace, changes were only made on a technical level in order to accommodate the PCs. The design of the office stayed similar to the days before it was widespread.

Thomas Arnold, Office Buildings, A Design Manual; Entwurfsatlas BĂźrobau, Engl. Ed., ed. by Rainer Hascher, 1st edn (Switzerland: Birkhauser Verlag AG, 2002), pp 20 - 21

Fig. 1, the IBM 5150

Effects of Internet on Workplace Design and Businesses In the 90’s however, further advances in the information technology field changed office design on a much larger scale. This new wave of technological advance brought with it the World Wide Web, created by Sir Timothy Berners-Lee, and launched in August 1991.68 The World Wide Web, along with laptops, internet browser, emails, and the already widespread of use PCs, dramatically changed the way business was conducted. These new technologies became the channels for information to be exchanged; paperwork 68

BBC, ‘History - Tim Berners Lee’, BBC, 2014 <http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/berners_lee_tim.shtml> [accessed 14 January 2016].

was no longer the exclusive vessel to carry information. This change meant that storage space within the office could be reduced, as a direct result of reduction in paperwork. The rows of filing cabinets and the piles and piles of paperwork on every desk that were so common in a Taylorist office could no longer be seen. For the first time, the physical distance between different departments and employees had almost no effect on the efficiency of the flow of information. Previous office design approach that was based on increasing the efficiency within the office by speeding up the flow of information and paperwork such as Bürolandschaft, was challenged on a fundamental level as a result of these inventions.69 One of the biggest difference that these new technologies made to the business and to workplace design was enabling employees to carry out work outside of the office. Inventions such as laptops, mobile phones and emails created a virtual office which enables employees to telecommute and work from home, in cafes and almost anywhere they wish. Coincidently, the recession also hit the world in the early 90’s as the result of collapse in the real estate market, turbulence in the stock market and war in the Middle East that led to rising oil prices.70 This would, in turn, become a factor that influenced office design.

Inaki Abalos and Juan Herreros, Tower and Officep. 205. Dan Barufaldi, ‘A Review of Past Recessions’ (Investopedia, 2008) <http://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/08/pastrecessions.asp?no_header_alt=true> [accessed 15 January 2016]. 70

Flexible Office The recession and the increase in competition in a more globalised market put more financial pressure on businesses, and they turned to reducing spending to keep themselves in profit. The fact that employees can now work outside of the office, money spent on office space became an area on which businesses focused its reduction. Prior to this, every employee would have worked on his/her own desk space. Thus, a company of 1,000 employees would require at least 1,000 desk spaces, and very often over that amount for meeting rooms and other communal spaces. However, the arrival of these new technologies allowed businesses to have fewer number of desks than employees, if a plan to rotate a certain amount of the employees to work out of the office is produced. This would reduce the required amount of office space, and thus reduced cost. Since the American telecommunications company AT&T started to implement its alternative workplace plan, it has saved $550 million dollars in cash flow, by eliminating offices people don’t need and related costs. Applying the similar scheme, IBM saves more than $100 million annually in its North American unit.71 More employees than desk spaces means that not every employee can have their designated work space. This leads to the use of non-territorial office first experimented by IBM in 1970, which involved employees not having a designated desk, but to work wherever they felt that they are most 71

Mahlon Apgar, ‘The Alternative Workplace: Changing Where and How People Work’, Organizational Culture (Harvard Business Review, 1998) <https://hbr.org/1998/05/the-alternative-workplace-changing-where-and-howpeople-work> [accessed 14 January 2016].

productive.72 A selection of communal work spaces were provided, such as normal desks and quite zones.73 Employees could work at a different work station everyday if it helped to improve their productivity. Surveys were conducted and employees spoke highly of the non-territorial office with comments such as “Don’t ever fence me in again” and “I was sceptical before, but I’d hate to go back to a close office now.”74 By moving around, employees see and meet each other more frequently, which resulted in better internal communications.

Interpolis Head Office In 1996, the Dutch insurance company Interpolis decided to implement this non-territorial flexible workplace approach to its head office in Tilburg, Netherlands. “Any user can access their applications and files by logging in and entering their passwords at any desk. Files and applications are held centrally and accessed over the network (…) everyone has a personal phone number and within the office everyone uses a DECT mobile telephone which they leave on charge each evening at a telephone wall on the way 72

Juriaan van Meel, ‘The Origins of New Ways of Working’, Facilities, 2013, pp. 358 – 359 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/02632771111146297>. 73 Juriaan van Meel, Workplaces Today (Netherlands: ICOP, 2015), pp. 128 – 130. 74 Thomas J Allen and Peter G Gerstberger, A Field Experiment to Improve CommunicationIs in a Product Engineering Department: The Non-Territorial Office (MIT, March 1973) <http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/1866/SWP-065345078245.pdf?sequence=1> [accessed 20 January 2016].

in to the area they work in, where their personal paper mail is also delivered”75

Fig. 2, DECT mobile phones and mails (Interpolis)

Personal lockers were provided for employees to store their personal belongings, a flex suitcase was also provided for each employee to carry around containing the various equipment that they needed.76 A variety of workspaces were created that could accommodate numerous requirements, such as enclosed spaces for conversations, media viewing 75

Advanced Workplace Associates and British Council for Offices,Interpolis Head Office – Tilburg, Netherlands, 2007, pp. 3 – 4 <http://www.veldhoencompany.com/workspace/uploads/publicaties/awa_interpoli s-50d33db91612e.pdf> [accessed 20 January 2016]. 76 Juriaan van Meel, Workplaces Today (Netherlands: ICOP, 2015), p. 134.

spaces and shared space. The transition proved to be a success for Interpolis, shown by its Facilitates Management Satisfaction rating which rose from 6 to 7.5.

Fig. 3, the flex suit case in one of the lockers (Interpolis)

Fig. 4, a shared work space (Interpolis)

Fig. 5, an isolation work space (Interpolis)

Fig. 6, Interior of the Interpolis Head Office 62

Summary When planned correctly, non-territorial office enforces numerous benefits to the organisation. These include reduced cost on office space and better internal commutations. However, without correct planning and calculation, it could lead to problems such as insufficient space for employees to work and not enough laptops or mobile phones. In 1993, advertising agency Chiat/Day announced that it would implement the non-territorial office layout, but was later forced to return to a more traditional office layout in 1998 as a result of insufficient space and equipment.77 The different methods used to increase the overall productivity of employees between organisations in this era and that of the Taylorist and Bürolandschaft eras are now clearly evident. More focus is now put on collaboration and communication between employees than ever before, which is an accurate reflection of the changing nature of tasks that employees are responsible for.

Warren Berger, ‘Lost in Space’, Wired Magazine (WIRED, 1999) <http://www.wired.com/1999/02/chiat-3/> [accessed 20 January 2016].

Today’s Office Summary of workplace design in today’s world.

Background Today, IT advances described in the previous chapter are no longer a new technological breakthrough for businesses, but have become an established necessity and collaboration between colleagues is now the norm. For many businesses, office space is no longer a matter of mere real estate that accommodates their employees, but a tool to increase productivity, teamwork and communications between employees, project its values, and recently, as a recruitment tool. The importance of employees’ wellbeing and satisfaction has now become one of the most focused aspects when designing and planning the workplace for businesses. The notion that employees are one of the most important aspects, and have the potential to determine the destiny of the organisation, is common among businesses. “Our people are our greatest asset”78 or lines similar to this can be seen consistently on company’s website. This view is entirely dichotomous to that of employers in the Taylorist era, when employees were carrying out simple repetitive tasks and were easily replaceable. In today’s economy, where the majority of workers are knowledge workers79, creativity, 78

‘People and Culture’, Goldman Sachs (Goldman Sachs) <http://www.goldmansachs.com/who-we-are/people-and-culture/> [accessed 17 January 2016]. 79 Charles Levy, Andrew Sissons and Charlotte Holloway, A Plan for Growth in the Knowledge Economy: A Knowledge Economy Programme Paper (The Work

innovation and collaboration among employees are the keys to success for many businesses. Methods used to increase work rate for employees in the Taylorist era, such as constant supervision and zero communication between staff to minimise distraction, are simply not effective on today’s employees and may actually initiate the opposite effect.

Reaction Against Telecommuting In today’s knowledge economy, many businesses that focus on innovation have come to understand that a tight and connected company culture is the key to success, and thus the importance of face to face communication expanded. This is evident in Yahoo banning of employees working remotely outside of the office in June 2013. The reason, according to their Chief Development Officer Jacqueline Reses, was that:

“To become the absolute best place to work, communications and collaboration will be important, so we will need to be working side by side. That is why it is critical that we are all present in our offices. Some of the best decisions and insights come from hallway and cafeteria discussions, meeting new

Foundation, July 2011) <http://www.theworkfoundation.com/DownloadPublication/Report/290_Plan%20f or%20growth%20in%20the%20knowledge%20economy%20June%2011.pdf> [accessed 16 January 2016].

people, and impromptu team meeting. Speed and quality are often sacrificed when we work from home…”80 81 82 Indeed, as discussed in the previous chapter, one of the benefits of employees working outside of the office was to save cost on office space, but it prevents the organisation from establishing a connected culture as employees are not consistently exposed to one another. The unscheduled interaction by employees are extremely beneficial to the organisation, with Google’s VP of Real Estate & Workplace Services, David Radcliffe, asserting that “Casual collisions are what we try and create in the work environment. You can’t schedule innovation, can can’t schedule idea generation and so when we think our facilities around the world, we’re really for little opportunities for engineers or for creative people to come together.”83 Samsung also shares the same view and incorporated it when designing the new office in California. According to its VP Scott Birnbaum,

Katherine Rushton, ‘Yahoo! Boss Bans Working from Home’, The Telegraph, 25 February 2013 <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/ 9892282/Yahoo-boss-bans-working-from-home.html> [accessed 17 January 2016]. 81 Nikil Saval, Cubed: The Secret History of the Workplace (United States: Anchor Books, 2015), pp. 290 – 291. 82Ben Waber, Jennifer Magnolfi and Greg Lindsay, ‘Workspaces That Move People’, Workspaces (Harvard Business Review, 2014) <https://hbr.org/2014/10/workspaces-that-move-people> [accessed 16 January 2016]. 83 ‘Inside Google Workplaces, from Perks to Nap Pods’, CBS News (CBS News, 2013) <http://www.cbsnews.com/news/inside-google-workplaces-from-perks-to-nappods/> [accessed 17 January 2016].

“The most creative ideas aren’t going to come while sitting in front of your monitor (…) the new building is really designed to spark not just collaboration but that innovation you see when people collide”84 Encouraging interaction and communication between employees is not a new concept. The main differences is that companies are using the design of the workplace to encourage interaction on a more casual level, outside of the traditional meeting rooms and with colleagues of the same or different department. This, of course, would need all employees to be present in the office.

Googleplex Google, one of the world’s largest companies, moved to its new office Googleplex in Mountain View, California in 2004.85 As a result, it was championed as a pioneer in creating a new kind of workplace that resembles a combination between a university campus and a holiday resort. As a consideration of employee wellbeing, break areas that involved chairs and tables were created in the Bürolandschaft era, which evolved to sofas and benches in the following decade, but has now been taken to a new level by Google. Employee wellbeing and comfort is at the heart of the Googleplex design process, which is evident with its numerous employees benefits such as on-site physicians and nurses to look after employees’ 84

ibid ‘Google Locations – Company – Google’, Google Locations<http://www.google.co.uk/about/company/facts/locations/> [accessed 21 January 2016]. 85

health86, nap pods that allows employees to rest should they require, free food and snacks and on site sport facilities.87 These new kind of workplace design, is described as “play office” by Juriaan van Meel, “The playful office design of today’s tech companies (…) can be traced back to the ‘dot-com’ boom of the early 1990s. (…) many of these companies were started by college-age entrepreneurs who were eager to break with any rule of conventional business, including those for workplace design. The dominate work ethic was ‘work hard, play hard’”88

Fig. 1, the Googleplex campus

‘Benefits - Google Careers’, Google<http://www.google.co.uk/about/careers/lifeatgoogle/benefits/> [accessed 17 January 2016]. 87 ‘Inside Google Workplaces, from Perks to Nap Pods’, CBS News (CBS News, 2013) <http://www.cbsnews.com/news/inside-google-workplaces-from-perks-to-nappods/> [accessed 17 January 2016]. 88

Juriaan van Meel, Workplaces Today (Netherlands: ICOP, 2015), pp. 102-103.

Indeed, these workplaces with recreational facilities fit the “work is play” ethos that many of the employees in the tech industry holds. However, one may question the reason behind making such an investment on employees; does it actually bring any benefits to the organisation? The answer, quite simply, is apparently so. Studies done by Warwick University discovered that happiness led to a 12% increase in productivity.89 There are currently 21,000 employees working in Googleplex; if every employee’s productivity is increased by 12%, a dramatic economical benefit for the organisation would be instigated. Moreover, in today’s globalised market, competition is tougher than ever before. For companies in the tech industry to stay competitive, creative and innovative, they would require the best of talents to work for them. Thus, organisations such as Google are more than happy to provide good benefits and a pleasant and enjoyable work environment to order to attract and retain such talent. Many of Google’s benefits do appear to be logical from the perspective of the organisation. Providing on-site medical care and sport facilities improves employees’ health, reducing the chances of an employee not working due to illness, thus increasing overall productivity. Other benefits had also been created for the same reason, free and on-site food, child care and laundry services enables employees to

Andrew Oswald, Eugenio Proto and Daniel Sgroi, Happiness and Productivity (Journal of Labor Economics, 7 August 2015) <http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/eproto/workingpapers/happi nessproductivity.pdf> [accessed 17 January 2016].

best make use of their time at work. According to Google’s Eric Schmidt, “The goal is to strip away everything that gets in our employees’ way (…) let’s face it: programmers want to program, they don’t want to do their laundry. So we make it easy for them to do both.”90 With such outstanding all-round service, employees of Google could potentially spend days to weeks on the Googleplex campus without sacrificing his or her comfort. This is something that is unachievable in any of the previous office designs. Google’s method of increasing overall productivity correlates to prioritising employee’s wellbeing, a dramatic contrast to the approach used in the Taylorist era. Communication and collaboration is not limited to the traditional meeting room in Googleplex. The casual encounters mentioned previously are strongly encouraged by Google and is viewed as beneficial; various recreational facilities are also created to encourage these casual encounters.

Dalton Conley, Elsewhere, U.S.A.: How We Got from the Company Man, Family Dinners, and the Affluent Society to the Home Office, Blackberry Moms, and Economic Anxiety (United States: Brilliance Audio, 2015).

Fig. 2, a work and meeting space (Googleplex)

Fig. 3, on-site volleyball facility (Googleplex)

Fig. 4, on site basketball courts

Fig. 5, exterior of the Googleplex

Summary It is clear that employees are now seen to be the heart of businesses and organisations would go above and beyond to attract and retain the best of talents, including the provision of various benefits and an enjoyable environment in which to work. However, it is also important to understand that these â&#x20AC;&#x153;Google styleâ&#x20AC;? offices are not appropriate for every organisation. Not every organisation can afford to provide such an environment and, for many industries, it is simply an unnecessary investment and doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t comply with the nature of the work that is carried out within their workplace.

Conclusion Eventually, the purpose of office buildings being to accommodate employees and maximise overall productivity was established and subsequently sustained. The motivation behind each major change assessed in this dissertation can be attributed to the initial design no longer serving its purpose, thus becoming obsolete, or simply to improve on the current design in the interest of increased efficiency. The issues surrounding designs falling out of use are rather complex, and many of them are beyond the organisation or the architectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s control. The developing world sees a perpetual drive for efficiency, and the design of office buildings is no exception to this. The Taylorist model increased efficiency for employees and organisations and thus served its purpose well. The Quickborner team then later highlighted the need for a new design to improve the efficiency of communication within the organisation, this of course being the result of the gradual change in office culture and the job role of employees. BĂźrolandschaft later also became obsolete due to user dissatisfaction and was replaced by cellular and combi offices. The rise of cellular and combi office was made possible by the growing influence of employees at that time, which again was partially due to the changing nature of the employeeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s role. The new wave of change in office design that followed was made possible by new technological inventions that revolutionised both the businesses world and office design alike. The latest change saw the creation of a 76

campus style office, and the difference in design when compared with the earliest Taylorist model is particularly stark. Both designs aimed to increase overall productivity of the workers and the organisation, and the more patent reasons for their differences were the advancement in materials and building techniques. The subtle and contextual divergences, however, include the new technologies and the difference in the nature of the roles performed by employees, thus the need for different methods and environments to improve their productivity arose. The role of the employees is intrinsically linked to the economical situation and technologies available. It was impossible for organisations or architects in the Taylorist era to foresee that employees would perform any other role other than typewriting, or the widespread use of internet and PCs. Thus, a habit of reaction, rather than preparation, is instigated in organisations and architects and subsequently evidenced in the development of this design process.

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