Teaching and Research Project
Groupware and Telecommunication
in A/E/C
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BEYOND THE OPEN PLAN: NEW SPACE PLANNING CONCEPTS TO SUPPORT ORGANIZATIONAL,
TECHNICAL AND ENVIROMENTAL CHARGE
Vivian Lofness, Volker Hartkopf, Susan Nurge,
Derek Rubinoff
Center for Building Performance and Diagnostics
Carnegie Mellon University - Spring 1994
9. Free Address and Group , Address Offices
The free address and group address unassigned office concepts are the
dormitory version of hoteling. The free address office is an open plan
of unassigned workstations where low or mid-level employees who spend most
of their time out of the office can drop in to do work without making any
kind of reservation. When a number of unassigned workspaces are dedicated
for use only by one organizational group or department, the free address
concept would be identified as a group address. Spaces are assigned on
a first-come first-served basis when an employee arrives and signs in at
an automatic touch screen. The assigned telephone number and computer files
for that employee are automatically networked to the temporary space.
Since the free address concept offers significant cost savings through
a 30-40% reduction in workspaces, the square footage, furniture and technology
provided for each workstation is typically of very high quality and continuously
up-to-date. Employees also receive lockers and files on wheels for transporting
personal files to the workspace (Figure 32). There may be a shared secretary
or receptionist. Other facilities provided include conferencing areas,
copier and printer areas, as well as shared file areas and teaming spaces.
Free address facilities are particularly useful for employees who spend
significant amounts of professional time outside the office and whose office
needs and schedules are hard to predict. The most successful free address
projects have been with sales forces, where over 75% of their time is expected
to be out of the office with potential clients. Attempts a( introducing
the free address system for large accounting/ consulting firms have been
much less successful due to the loss of privacy and status.
Reconfigurable Group Address Offices
One variation on the group address office is the concept: of reconfigurable
unassigned office furniture systems. This group address office consists
of adjustable furnishings which can be repeatedly rearranged depending
on the task or workgroup needs. Desks and panels can be reassembled in
relation to a modular grid that make network and power reconnections easy.
The redesigned spaces for the Bank of Boston in Canton, Massachusetts
are an example of the reconfigurable group address office (Figures 33a
& 33b). In the 200,000 square foot facility, teams of employees are
in charge of workstation layouts which can be reconfigured according to
the type of activity. This is easily done since there are no partitions
surrounding the freestanding desk systems. Suspended from the ceiling,
'pencil yellow' cable trays bring power, data, and voice to the prewired
workstations, The free address approach to office planning reduced office
space requirements in the bank by 10%, from 275 to 243 square feet per
person rentable sf per person to 243 sf. (Sraeel)
By making it easy to rearrange space, one problem with reconfigurable
workstations is that, they encourage rearrangement, increasing costs and
disruption. Also, while the furniture may easily be reconfigurable, the
data/power/voice connectivity and the environmental conditioning systems
are not as easily reconfigurable. As densities and equipment and activities
change in the reconfigured spaces, the planned services may no longer match
the layout, creating inadequacies in air quality, thermal and visual comfort,
spatial quality, and connectivity.
10. Red Carpet Club Offices
The concept of red carpet club offices may offer the greatest success
for the JIT or unassigned workstation approach. „Red Carpet Club Offices"
are mixed suites of open workstations (free address), telephone and computer
cubicles, closed offices (hoteling), conference rooms, relaxation areas
and other possible work settings off campus. Employees may drop in and
use the club as satellite offices and on campus employees may use the club
as a quiet, impromptu workspace or meeting area. In the words of Michael
Brill, the main idea behind the layout of these clubs is to "deconstruct
the office into task-specific areas" (figure 34).
Typically the club is managed by a receptionist, and no reservations
are necessary. At a minimum, there are unassigned spaces for private work,
conference spaces for meetings and a bar for relaxation and informal discussion.
The clubs are capable of supporting multiple networks, phones, fax machines,
copiers and printers, as well as other shared services such as dining,
publications and travel support). The expected length of stay would only
be a few hours per day. Red Carpet Clubs could be located anywhere, including
within a headquarters building, and could act: as a corporate base for
those who work at home, in the car, or in satellite offices.
One of the earliest examples of red carpet club offices is the sales
office of Digital in Helsinki, Finland (Figure 35). When arriving each
morning, the individual worker collects their rolling personal effects
cart and a phone, heading towards a wide range of exciting work areas within
the building. The range of very private to very interactive red carpet
club spaces that are offered in this sales office include: a greenhouse/
garden with swing, a library and quiet work areas, small and large conference
rooms, a coffee/expresso bar, printing and production areas, and distributed
computer workstations with views.
A more recent example of the red carpet. club office is the headquarters
of the advertising agency Chiat/Day in California. The organizing model
for this innovative office project: is that of a campus, "with project.
rooms playing the part of classrooms, a media center figuring as the library,
and even a student union". When the project is complete, the 365 employees
will have the opportunity to do individual or collective work in a wide
variety of eclectic spaces: the club room, the crow's nest, the conference
womb, the flop room (for working horizontally), and the tilt and whirl
private conference cars. One employee concludes "The whole virtual
office process is about responsibility. It's like going from high school
to college, where no one is around to make sure you go to class."
Workers in this non – territorial red carpet club office say "It's
not a place, it's a process" -(Figures 36ci & 36 b).
Telecommuting Centers and Satellite Offices
Recent interests in telecommuting centers run parallel to the use of
non-territorial or JIT office planning approaches. A number of organizations
in major cities are experimenting with satellite offices and telecommuting
centers to reduce the time and pollution cost of commuting long distances
from home to office. Telecommuting centers, which could be referred to
as neighborhood offices and can be in the home, are part-time work sites
close to home, relying on a main office for collective work and large scale
production. It is possible for multiple agencies to share a telecommuting
center, since it provides most critically, a networked, private place to
work.
While telecommuting centers are typically part time workplace (1-2
days a week), satellite offices, sometimes referred to as back offices,
are full time workplaces for divisions of organizations, typically in more
affordable locations. There are hybrid opportunities for certain kinds
of knowledge workers in the form of distributed but connected multi-work
sites, called Telework centers (Synergy Group).
Typically, workplaces in telecommuting centers are configured in any
one of the 3 unassigned (JIT) workplace planning approaches. In ill three
configurations, it. is critical that the level of technology and the networking
be state-of- the-art and fully compatible with that in the main 4ffice,
so that work can be effectively accessed and communicated. The quality
of the workplace physically and environmentally is equally important, with
the hope that the part-time telecommuting office offers the most effective
environment for individual, concentrated work. In addition, the telecommuting
centers and satellite offices should offer the opportunity for a non car-dependent
workday, centered on main street, in a mixed-use community with pedestrian
and public transportation to residential neighborhoods.
Indeed, one of the great advantages of telecommuting is the potential
for "renewing" communities and towns. Telecommuting should help
to alleviate the need for speculative "office parks" which perpetuate
single-use land development and automobile dependency. These quick-profit
beltway office parks have contributed to the thinning out of America, abandoning
existing communities and infrastructures. The least-cost speculative buildings
also tend to be of poor spatial, technical and environmental quality, in
contrast to those fully intended for rebuilding neighborhoods.
JIT Conclusions
Initial case studies (Becker 1992) have shown that the success of unassigned
JIT offices are a result of a number of factors: · Successful JIT
offices are more likely to be "owned" by the user group rather
than by the facilities group. · JIT offices designs arc driven by
productivity and cost, rather than cost alone; management focuses on space
savings after providing staff with quality space, technology and environmental
conditions. · Successful JIT offices provide work/productivity tools
that employees value, such as laptop computers, enhanced telephone systems,
car phones, project rooms and conference rooms, resource centers, and quiet
areas. · Design processes involve staff directly in all planing
and design decisions (not just "input") about the form and use
of the shared office. · JIT workplaces are designed and implemented
as a total system: space, furniture, technology, administration, use. (Becker,
"Excuse Me")
Possibly the most significant uses of JIT offices will be to offer
more diverse workspace types within existing office complexes and to offer
community based, non-distracting work settings in telecommuting centers.
Conclusion
Each one of these space planning approaches will have appropriate uses
for different organizations, different divisions within the same organization,
and for the same division over its life of organizational and functional
dynamics.
However, the trendy interest in least-cost unassigned workstations
under the auspices of effective 'teaming' spaces may result in excessive
densities and distractions with inadequate service. For successful new
office design, management. must make a genuine commitment to enhancing
productivity and workplace quality, not just reducing space and furniture
costs. A key aspect of this success is listening to and working with employees
to identify the settings and tools they need to be able to work effectively.
Throughout. these discussions, what. is most critically needed is an
infrastructure of building subsystems an6 services capable of absorbing
the change in space planning, from open plan to combi-offices to red carpet
clubs. Dynamics in space planning cannot be accommodated through the existing
service infrastructure - neither the 'blanket systems' for uniform open
plan configurations or the idiosyncratic systems for unique configurations.
What is needed are flexible grid-flexible density-flexible closure systems-a
constellation of building systems that permit each individual (workstation)
to set the location and density of: ventilation and thermal conditioning;
lighting; telecommunications; and furniture, including the level of workspace
enclosure-the subject of future chapters.
Assigned Bibliography
ABSIC. German Building Studies, research report presented at the Feb.
14, 1989 meeting of the Advanced Building Systems Integration Consortium,
Pittsburgh, PA.
Becker, Franklin. The Total Workplace, New York: Van Nostrand, 1990.
Buchanan, Peter. Beyond Beheer. Architectural Review, May 1987. pgs.
37-40.
Buchanan, Peter. Beheer's Big Brother. Architectural Review, March
1991. pgs. 28-39.
Davis, G., F. Becker, F. Duffy, and Wm. Sims, ORBIT-2.,. Overview Report,
Norwalk: Harbinger Group, Inc., 1985.
Duffy, Frank. Planning Office Space. New York: Nichols Publication
Company, 1976.
Duffy, Frank, SAS Corporation. Architectural Review, March l989. pgs.
43-51.
Freiman, Ziva. Hype vs. Reality: The Changing Workplace. Progressive
Architecture, March 1994. pgs. 48-55, 89-91. Institute of Office Environment.
Office Style Book. Tokyo: Process Architecture Publication Co., Vol. 60,
1985.
Kaplan, Audrey. "Building Diagnosis Improves Overall Effectiveness
of Facility." IFMA Journal. January / February 1990. pgs. 42-49.
Kleeman, Walter. Interior Design of Electronic Offices. New York: Van
Nostrand Reinhold, 1991.
Loftness et al. Beyond the open plan. Neocon Conference Paper, Spring
1994.
Loftness, Vivian. Re-valuing buildings: Infrastructures to Support
Organizational, Spatial, Technical, and Environmental Innovations. Fall
1993.
NOPA, Results of Survey on Office Environments in Japan, Tokyo, Japan:
New Office Promotion Association, 1988.
Pile, John. Open Office Planning: A Handbook for Interior Designers
and Architects. New York: Watson-Guptill Publications, 1978.
Pulgram, Wm., and R. Stonis. Designing the Automated Office. New York;
Whitney Library of Design, 1984.
Smith, Herbert Jr. Environmental Empathy. Architectural Record, November
1986. pg. 100-103.
Staebler, Wendy. Midwest Design. Interiors, May 1987. pgs. 299-31 I.
Steelcase. Facilities Focus; New Heights in Office Effectiveness. Grand
Rapids, Michigan; Steelcase Inc., I989.
TRW. TRW Headquarters. Cleveland, Ohio: TRW Inc., (undated).
JIT Bibliography t,
At NeoCon, Brill Warns Corporate FMs That Major Reconstruction Lay
Ahead. Facilities Design and Management, v11 1n8 (Aug92), p10
Becker, Franklin. The Total Workplace. New York: Van Nostrand, O<:
1990, p. 199-209, 232.
Becker, Franklin; Simms, William; Davis, Bethany. Excuse Me. I Think
That's My Desk. Facilities Design & Management, v10n2 (Feb91), p48-51
Brill, Michael. New Offices, Now Offices, No Offices... Wild Times
in Office-World. BOSTI (paper) 23Sept92
Brill, Michael. The Office as a Tool. Teknion, 1994
Cook, Robert J. The Virtual Office of the 1990s. Facilities Management
Journal, May/June l993, p.35
Kleeman, Walter B., Jr. Hot Desks. Facilities, v10n9 (Sept92), p l
1-13
Kleinschrod, Walter A. Office Space Planning: Finding the Right Balance.
Today's Office, v25n12 (M'iy91), p36-40
McMillan, Lorel. Ernst A Young Calculates A High Return from Hoteling
and High-Tech. Facilities Design A Management, April 1993, p32-37.
O'Grady, P.J. Putting the Just-In-Time Philosophy into Practice. New
York: Nichols Pub. Co., 1988, p. 1-51
Richards, Kristen. Just In Time (Qffice Space for the Hank of Boston).
Interiors, Mnrch91, p86-9
Sraeel, Holly. Bank of Boston's JIT Gives Eileen Harvard the FM Edge.
Facilities Design & Management, v l I n 10 (Oct92), p46-49
Strahler, Steven R. A Shrinking Need for' Office Space. Crains Chicago
Business, v15 nn22 (1June92), pl5
Stoltzfus, Duane. Designing Offices. Record, Hackensack, NJ, Business
section, 29Marchl993.
Sullivan, Elizabeth. Steelcase Marketing Team-Building Office. Grand
Rapids Business JournaI, v10, n29, sec.2, p.B-1
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