Visions of the New Office

The dissolving of the bond between the individual and the fixed workplace, so long overdue, brings space use and organizational performance much closer. Space use can be managed. Space use relates directly to new management ideas that are being put into effect in Europe and Great Britain. The debate about the relationship between office design and productivity got stuck. Organizationally, productivity was measured in too primitive and Taylorist a way (what matters is group interaction). Physical design was examined too statically (what matters is the use of space through time). This will now change because clients and users can now: use space twice or three times as effectively; relate space use directly to organizational reengineering; and give their staff freedom in the use of time that is much more desirable than the best that had been on offer before (and then really only in Europe)—control over place. An exhilarating threefold offer that, even if designers don't understand it, clients can't refuse!