A New Platform for the Design of Office Environments

In office design projects, the architect will often have one idea for the design, and management another, while the users will prove to have a completely different set of needs. This may result in design solutions that defeat the intention. In a recently defended Ph.D. dissertation at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture and the Danish Centre for Design Research, architect Sidse Grangaard has attempted to develop instruments aimed at strengthening the dialogue between the various parties.

By Mads Nygaard Folkmann

One observation in particular caused Sidse Grangaard to embark on this project. Pictures of architecture in journals and magazines hardly ever feature people, although they are the ones who are ultimately going to use the architecture, creating the activity that the architecture forms the setting for.

With her dissertation Med mennesker i rammen – dialogorienteret registrering af rum og aktivitet i kontormiljøer (Including the user – dialogue-oriented registration of space and activity in office environments), which she defended at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture on 23 January 2009, Sidse Grangaard offers a common point of departure for architects, users and company to help promote optimum solutions in the field of office design.
"The key point is meeting the users. I wanted to place the discovery of their needs on an observational level rather than basing it on assumptions," says Sidse Grangaard.

Dialogue-Oriented Registration

The main objective of the dissertation was to develop a new design method for the design of office environments.
"Normally, the architect will draw up a programme, a design proposal that sets the parameters for the activity in an office," says Sidse Grangaard.
"In addition to this, there is a company or an organisation with a particular self-image, and hence a particular idea about the proper setup for the office. In my dissertation, I have attempted to increase the understanding of the interaction between space and activity. I aim to prepare the various parties as well as possible to promote this interaction in relation to the design process and the dialogue about the design of the physical setting. This applies both to the design of new settings from scratch and to the design of existing office facilities."

Sidse Grangaard proposes dialogue-oriented registration as a method for achieving a better understanding between architect and company. Developing a common understanding promotes a higher degree of integration between design proposal and actual needs in the workplace.

Sidse Grangaard’s dissertation is structured around a series of issues that build on each other. In the process, she has addressed three research questions, each related to a specific office design case and each leading on to the next issue.
"The first issue is how we read or decode space and activity. Here, I have examined the particular perspective that is applied in seeking to include the users and their work process. The second issue is identifying the general challenge in designing office environments. I have studied this both in relation to the space itself and to the design process. The last issue I address is how one can ultimately create dialogue-oriented registration to include the users’ input as much as possible. In order to include the users in the analysis and capture their encounter with the physical setting I have applied theory and method from culture analysis as well as architecture theory," says Sidse Grangaard.

A New Perspective on Office Design

Thus, in her dialogue-oriented registration, Sidse Grangaard has placed a great emphasis on interviews with and observations of users of existing office environments.

"Observing how users actually create activity in an office environment leads to new insights," says Sidse Grangaard.
"In the dissertation I challenge the ‘New Office’ model where a basic view of functional divisions of the work space requires people to leave their desks to engage in meeting activities in the common areas. In practice, the case turns out to be quite the opposite: All the informal meetings take place at the desks, and this is where people are together, while the common areas are where people go to be alone, maybe to find a more private space for a phone call."

Sidse Grangaard challenges the ‘New Office’ model, where office space is divided into quiet work stations and common areas where meetings take place. In practice, the activity of informal meetings mainly takes place in the area around the desks.

Patterns and Waves

Through her dialogue-oriented registration, Sidse Grangaard has developed specific methods for exploring the activity in an office environment. She distinguishes between patterns, which describe a structure for the encounter between space and activity, and waves, which define shifts and a rhythm in the concrete activity taking place.
"With the patterns I seek to point out the relationship between space and activity, that is, the way in which different rooms enable different types of activity," says Sidse Grangaard.
"With the waves I seek to record how the users behave over time: Do they, for example, work in long waves with few shifts in activity, or do they work in short waves with many shifts in activity type?"

Developing Instruments

This system of patterns and waves enables that new perspective and the common point of departure for developing office designs that were Sidse Grangaard’s main objective. "As part of the project, I developed a wave exercise where the users were asked to describe the rhythms in their work," says Sidse Grangaard.
"Drawing the waves enables us to assess the interaction between space and activity together and, not least, articulate the complexity in this interaction. This gave us an insight into the work rhythm that provided important feedback for the design process."

In an exercise, four employees have placed sequence markers with photos from everyday life in the office environment based on their experience of the degree of interaction and autonomy. This creates a landscape of positions where differences and similarity become visible.

With her dissertation Sidse Grangaard sought to expand the repertoire that architects can draw on in their efforts to develop good solutions that incorporate the dynamic character of the users’ everyday life.
"The dissertation can be seen as a first step toward a design practice that enables architects to target their efforts more directly at the specific customer," says Sidse Grangaard.