Chapter Three: Office Planning & Design

Office Planning and Design

The decision to reassess office accommodation, and the ensuing actual organizational changes that are instituted, can change the whole future of both the company and its employees. Usually, this decision is brought about by a crisis, of one sort or another, concerning the efficiency of the office function. Since the causes of such crises are rarely singular, once the decision is made, a sense of urgency often takes over. This in turn intensifies the problems, and, in some cases, can lead to administrative anarchy, which provides managers with an excuse for inefficiency and for management by appeasement.  

Most managers experience very few major company reorganizations or relocations during their careers. They are, therefore, apt to be confronted with situations they are not equipped to handle, situations that can be both frustrating and bewildering in their complexity. Underlying all these problems is the fact that the company must continue to operate throughout the planning stage and the transfer of business to the new premises (or during the relocation of a department in the same building). At such a time, everyone, from the corporate director right down to the security person on the gate, needs all his or her expertise simply to handle day-to-day functions. Many organizations reduce their managers' efficiency by involving them far too deeply in the office planning function.  

Planning and Equipping Office Space

The philosophy behind space planning and office design is to seek perfection in the working environment and total efficiency in corporate activity. However, no two projects are ever the same, nor can the requirements of individual clients be met by a standard set of design answers. Each case needs individual tailoring not only to meet present problems but also to allow for probable changes in the future (for some predetermined period of time). Space planning must, therefore, combine experience, computer analysis, technical library resources, knowledge of legal and employee-negotiated standards, and true designer creativity, linked with economic feasibility and comparative analysis. Twenty years ago, perhaps an organization might have been able to equip its own offices with little help from outside expertise. Today, however, technological advances in equipment and the ever present threat of international competition and high operating costs make it illogical for any company to contemplate office planning without assistance from a professional office planning organization. Therefore, once a decision has been made to reorganize an office or to create new office facilities, the first objective must be to hire an office planning organization. There are many to choose from, and much of the glossy literature available suggests that choosing the office planner will be the easiest and most obvious step taken during the entire planning process. There are, however, certain factor that must be evaluated before an office planning consultant is appointed: Does the office planner under consideration have expertise in the organization's field? In other words, does the planner understand the organization's problems because of experience with similar companies? And is the planning organization financially secure to last the period of the contract?  

Furthermore, modern office planning demands that the selected office planning organization possess certain capabilities - for example, does the planner have in-house or working long-term alliances with management consultants, systems analysts, and cost control and budget analysts? In addition, the manager should make sure that the selected consultant will be able to provide the sophisticated services necessary to take the program from conception to completion.

Therefore, when evaluating consulting firms, the manager should ask the following questions:  

1. Are they merely furnishers or do they possess total design capabilities?  

2. Do they have in-house computer facilities? (Today's office planning depends heavily on computers.)  

3. Are they able to manage the manager's organization's purchasing requirements, expedite its orders, and ensure that quality checks are made during production?  

4. Do they have a construction management division that will be able to take the drawings and actually create the project to both legal and technical standards?

Apart from evaluating all these qualities, the executive also needs to establish that the selected consultant is suited to the project. This does not merely mean determining whether the project is too large for the consulting firm. There are, in fact, some companies that, although experienced with large contracts, would find it difficult to adjust their production to smaller projects. Clearly, appointing an office planning organization to act as consultant to the company is possibly one of the most important long-term decisions the planning executive will ever make, for the company will have to rely on the planner's expertise (or lack of it) and its effects for years to come.  

Once an organization has established that its existing premises are inefficient, out of date, or just plain uninspiring to those who work within them, then a decision will normally be made if the company wishes to progress, to either revamp the existing premises or to move into a new and up-to-date facility. There are several concepts and systems that the organization must then employ to achieve its goal. These can be used as checklists by the executive who is responsible for overseeing this function of the company. The procedures outlined below, and the planning executive's responsibilities throughout the process, are discussed in detail later in this chapter. How these procedures fit into the overall planning process can be further clarified by studying the "Space Planning and Design Procedures Outline" in the Appendix (part III, in particular).  

Design Concept and Preliminary Budgets.

To evaluate the criteria that will affect design and capital expenditure, the following steps must be taken:

1. The image that the company or organization wishes to promote to the world must be established.

2. The budget that the company is willing to expend to achieve this image and the efficiency that the firm requires must be evaluated and decided upon, with minimum and maximum levels set.

3. It must be decided if flexibility is a criterion or if the requirements of the new facility will be predictable and unchanging.  

4. It should be established whether existing furniture, equipment, and furnishings are to be used in the new facility, or to be augmented with new equipment, or to be sold off and dispensed with entirely.

5. The type of planning systems required must be evaluated.  

6. Any facilities within the organization that will require extra expenditure must be identified and standards for these established.  

7. Any special utility that might be expensive (acoustics, heating and ventilation, air conditioning, and so on) should be discussed and acceptable levels of expenditure and quality agreed upon.  

8. The extent to which the image of the company will be promoted by using art objects or decoration (for example, plants, paintings, sculptures, landscaping, and so on) should be established.  

The office planning consultants will present a description of their design concept composed of the following units:  

1. A block study - that is, a set of drawings, describing their advice on location of departments.

2. A study of the layout system, which will show traffic lanes and communication channels within the building (the emphasis of this study is on circulation throughout the space).  

3. An explanation of the size and layout of work stations they propose to use in the space.  

4. Sketches of possible solutions to the problems that important special facilities may present.  

5. Sample boards that present possible color schemes.

6. Photographs and sample upholsteries, relating to possible furniture lines that may meet the client's design criteria.  

Having established the client's preferences, the office planning consultants will next evaluate the costs of the chosen items and their alternatives and scope budget. Included in this evaluation will be:

1. Furniture (including custom-made choices).  

2. Decorative items, such as carpets, draperies, wall coverings, desk accessories, etc.

3. Sculptures, paintings, graphics, and signs.  

4. Telephone equipment and in-house communication products.  

5. Electronic data processing equipment.  

6. Audiovisual equipment.  

7. Special utility requirements.  

8. Costs related to relocation or reorganization.  

9. Costs related to security. 

10. Office landscaping (plants, containers, and so on).  

Once the background information has been obtained, and the design concept and the scope budget have been presented, the office planning consultants will require management approval of the design concept and of the finalized scope budget.  

Space Study.

After the design concept and the scope budget have been approved, the office planning consultants will begin to study the overall space standard requirements of the client organization. This study will include the following:  

1. Final stacking plan.  

2. Final block plan and its approval.  

3. Circulation patterns.  

4. Preliminary space study.  

(a) Unit and department boundaries.  
(b) All constructed partition and door locations.  
(c) Location of all open work stations identified by title and/or position.  
(d) Location of all special facilities.  
(e) Location of major elements of open spaces, such as file groupings, reception, and copy and supply centers.  
(f)  Possible furniture arrangements for typical work stations - for example, for each size of private office and each type of open work station.  

5. Approval and revision of preliminary space study:

(a) by management; 
(b) by unit and department heads; 
(c) by management after suggested revisions.  

Final Layout.

Once the client's decisions relative to the space study findings have been made, the office planners will prepare a final layout. This will include:  

1. Final version of preliminary space study.  

2. Types of partitions.  

3. All furniture.  

4. Location of telephones and electrical wiring.  

5. Location of equipment requiring special electrical service, special ventilation, or special construction.  

6. Names and titles (optional).  

7. Approval of final layout by:

(a) unit and department heads
(b) management.  

Final Design and Budget.

Using the management approved findings from the space study and final layout, the office planner's next phase will be to present the final design and final budget. These will include:  

1. Detailed layouts and/or sketches of important special facilities.  

2. Colored drawings of important design facilities.  

3. Models or photographs of models.  

4. Full size mock ups of workstations.  

5. Color sample boards of materials.  

6. Photographs or catalog pages of all furniture and furnishings.  

7. Exhibit of selected art.  

8. Sign program.  

9. Detailed budget of all costs, including allowances for delivery, storage, taxes, and contingencies.

10. Management approval of the final design and budget.  

Establishing the Design Brief 

To gain the most from the creative abilities of a designer and the skills of an office planner, the executive must make sure that they are briefed fully and in depth. They must know exactly what the organization wishes its image to be and within what financial parameters it wishes to operate. Most professional office planning organizations will organize a design orientation meeting once they have completed their fact finding and presented their space analysis. At this design orientation meeting, they will present a library of past designs they have executed, from which the planning executive can identify appropriate styles, alternatives, and solutions, and, at the same time, indicate those things that should not be included. The executive must make certain that the designer understands the company's requirements. During the design orientation meeting, the designer should gain an accurate understanding of the image the company wishes to create for the future.  

As part of the planning process, the organization must identify those employees of an executive status who will be involved in decision-making during the office planning project. Separate categories for input and decision making should be established and a decision making hierarchy developed so that prob­lems and conflicts do not arise, requiring some sort of arbitrary management decision. A simple example of just such a problem is the following: Suppose that both the head of the accounting department and the head of research and development wish to have their offices located on the same floor in the same area. If no method of making the choice without aggravating the parties involved has been predetermined, then any management decision is apt to appear arbitrary and preferential, thereby upsetting the administration of the organization.  

For large organizations that are planning the relocation of offices to a new site, the most common form of decision making structure is three-tiered. The lowest tier is composed of the department heads, who form the basis of an advisory committee.  Immediately above them comes the new facilities committee, which is established by the Board of Directors or Chief Executive Officer. This structure allows the department heads to make suggestions and recommendations, the office planning committee to establish alternatives, and corporate management to make the final decision. As this course continues, the specific personnel who will participate on the advisory committee will become apparent.  

In summary, before beginning, the planning executive presents the design brief to the office planning consultants and the following items should be firmly established:  

1. The maximum financial expenditure acceptable to the organization.  

2. A time schedule to cover the entire program, from instructing the designers through the "move in."  

3. The executives who will form the advisory committee.  

4. The executives who will form the new facilities committee.  

5. A list of suggested consultants or contractors that the organization prefers the designers to employ on this project.  

6. A staged program that schedules the various steps of the project at definite times. (The executive should be prepared to adjust this, if necessary, giving written notice to everyone involved.)  

Collecting Information

To design a successful commercial facility, the designers first must acquire in-depth knowledge of the organization. Office planning is completely dependent on the existence of accurate data. This includes the history of how the organization has operated up to the present; a detailed account of each department's responsibilities, methods, and systems; and a complete agenda of its plans and ambitions for the future. To obtain such data, the planning consultants will assign project analysts to the company to collect the information the planners will need. Systems for this fact finding differ according to the professional status of the consultants; however, in general, the following aspects of the organization will be examined:  

1. The location of departments.  

2. The number of employees in each department and their responsibilities.  

3. The equipment each person needs to conduct his or her task.  

4. The space each person occupies at the present time.  

5. The interdepartmental communication and the flow of paperwork within each department.  

6. The intradepartmental communication between departments, what form it takes, and whether it is totally efficient.  

7. The existing employee facilities, such as rest rooms, restaurants, and lounges.  

8. The methods the organization uses to communicate with the outside world, both clients and suppliers, and the equipment employed in those actions.  

To obtain such information, the analysts will need the cooperation of all department heads (clearly, cooperation of those involved is essential to any office planning exercise). All department heads must be brought together before the fact- finding stage begins so that the reasoning behind it and the methods it will employ can be fully explained to them by the office planning consultants.  

Tabulating Data

Most professional office planning firms employ computers to tabulate the findings of the initial investigations. This compilation presents a complete picture of the organization as it presently exists and covers such things as an inventory of existing furniture and equipment; the number of people employed in each department and their ability to operate within the present situation; and the volume and regularity of inter- and intra-departmental communication. The data picture will, in general, isolate all the facts that are needed to proceed with the office planning program. The tabulations should be checked and understood by the department heads who form the advisory committee and by the new office facilities committee. No matter how professional and efficient the office planning firm, without the full cooperation and assistance of its client, it will be unable to produce the best answer to the client's existing and potential problems. Discovering errors or unverified conclusions in this tabulation of data is only to be expected, and revisions will have to be made. Once the office planning consultants and the organization's executives concur on a revised tabulation of data, the planning stage can begin.  

Initial Design Decisions

Using the organization's design brief, the general design concept, and the information compiled in the data tabulation, the office planning consultants are able to bring their experience and expertise into play on behalf of the organization. They will present alternative answers and proposals that will provide the client with offices that will be functional, efficient, economical, and aesthetically pleasing. They can produce recommendations for special space requirements, such as public areas, data processing, eating and rest facilities, filing and storage areas, and conference rooms. They can also organize relative needs and determine the best means of catering to each of them within the matrix of the total design.  

Many office planning firms today employ both behavioral psychologists and management experts. Therefore, initial design decisions can be based not only on the tabulation of physical data but also on the results of a behavioral psychology report and the advice of management experts. Suggestions from these sources are obtained during the collection of information stage.  

To gather pertinent information, the behavioral psychologist can conduct a questionnaire program among the employees. The benefits of this approach are twofold: (1) valuable information is obtained; and, (2) the potential for greater productivity is enhanced because the talent, experience, and individual requirements of the staff are taken into consideration.  

The planning experts are able, using the results of their information collection, to compare the client's present or proposed methods and systems with those used by other organizations in the same field and make recommendations accordingly. Or they may suggest implementing the latest developments available in equipment or systems. The consultants will also make recommendations relative to proposed and possible expansion programs within an organization. Furthermore, they will deal with ways of increasing the efficiency of communications within the organization and with its clients and suppliers.  

Establishing Space Standards  

Space standards are, for each job, the square footage of floor area that will be allowed for occupation by any person performing that job. The standard is established by considering the needs of each individual occupation or responsibility. Space standards are also developed for communal and multi-occupancy areas, such as corridors, conference rooms, rest rooms, and lounges.

Space planning consultants develop alternative sets of figures for every job grade. For example, every grade 1 Executive Secretary is calculated into the floor plan as occupying an area of, say, 120, 125, or 130 square feet (10 feet by 12, 12.5, and 13 feet, respectively). These figures are then multiplied by the number of persons employed as grade 7 Executive Secretaries to give a range of total space allocations for this classification. When every individual's special area requirements have thus been calculated, the total square footage needed by the organization to operate efficiently will have been established (within a certain range).  

The new office facilities committee is presented with a choice of several possible space standard options for each category of employee existing in the organization. If the total area available or permitted is a set or arbitrary figure, then a permutation of the possible options must be chosen to fit into that area. If the organization is in the process of finding new premises or of commissioning a "built-to-suit" property to house its administration services, the space standards tabulation will be extremely useful for evaluating all the possible options. The organization, of course, must take into consideration several factors that will have a bearing on the acceptability of its decisions by its employees:  

1. In an open plan office system, individual area requirements will be smaller than if a system is implemented that creates individual acoustical and visual privacy through the use of floor-to-ceiling partitions.  

2. The alternatives available to the employees should they find the company's space decisions unattractive will also affect employee response. For example, if other organizations competing for the same skilled staff as organization A are offering areas 20 feet by 12 feet for a grade 1 Executive Secretary and organization A is offering areas that are 8 feet by 8 feet, and if salaries are comparable, then organization A is tempting its employees to look elsewhere.  

3. The firm's expansion plans will affect the overall space allotment of any given area. For example, if the office planners have allowed for the doubling of staff employed in one area, allotting 120 square feet to both those presently employed and to those yet to be recruited, then it will appear to the present employees on move in that they each possess 240 square feet of space. Space decisions must always take into account not only the physical environment at move in but also the effects of expansion plans on that environment.  

4. A final important factor concerns technological innovations, which are occurring far more rapidly than most of us can accept or understand. The firm's needs for sophisticated equipment will change as time progresses. The equipment needed may be larger or smaller, louder or softer, than that which is presently in use or contemplated. The executive planner, must, therefore, ensure that these future possibilities are taken into account. The predictions of department heads or equipment suppliers should be sought, and their advice passed onto the office planner.  

Finally, the evaluation of space standards must take into account every detail that could affect productivity. Such factors as the following should be considered:  

1. Will the space provided for an individual be shared? If so, for what percentage of that individual's working time?  

2. Will non-employees (clients, visiting executives, or consultants) have to work in this space?  

3. Will the individual have adequate visual and acoustical privacy to carry out his or her duties efficiently?  

In conclusion, therefore, we see that the establishment of space standards is important, not just in terms of aesthetics or effective office management techniques, but also with respect to recruitment, productivity, and staff contentment in the workplace. A compatible balance between high expenditure and adequate provision of working space is the ideal solution.

Block Layout  

When the office planners have established with their client an acceptable set of space standards, they will assemble the facts and isolate the needs of each department within the organization. Taking into account the present staff levels and plans for future expansion, they will establish a relative amount of space needed for each department. They will then begin the block layout phase of the planning process. "Block studies" evaluate the possible location of each depart­ment and unit within an organization in relation to every other department. Location decisions are based on interdepartmental accessibility and communications requirements with respect to the flow of people and paperwork. For example, suppose two departments need to communicate with each other con­stantly and must interact to be efficient. Placing these departments at opposite ends of a building or several stories apart would simply be illogical. In other words, it is necessary first to determine who should be next to whom, and then try to implement this within the overall plan. At this stage, the designer or planner will find that block studies are useful for explaining to the client the reasoning behind location decisions.  

Obviously, departmental functions and the efficiency of communication between departments must be viewed in conjunction with the economics of layout. Using the space standards established for each position to determine the space requirements of each department, the planner can "block out" in different colors the areas required for each department and fit them into the overall building layout. Preliminary space study plans are produced in this manner to analyze and validate suggested solutions, showing the proposed locations of all the organizational components - from reception areas, departmental offices, and service areas to the executive suite - thereby illustrating the recommended workflow pattern. Placing every department in its ideal location is, of course, rarely possible.  

Determining the appropriate locations for all departments with respect to their needs to communicate and operate is a task that should only be undertaken by a qualified office planner. An amateur, for instance, any executive could, through trial and error, establish how and whereto position departments, but in most instances the organization will find that consulting a professional planner is, in the end, the least expensive and most efficient approach to this task.  

When the block studies are discussed, proposed departmental locations must be evaluated in terms of their potential costs relative to the organization's overall financial plans for the project. Cost control is always an important factor to bear in mind. Simply because a particular department head would like to have his or her department on the ground floor facing the garden does not necessarily justify locating the department there. Therefore, block studies (and decisions about them) must be explained diplomatically to department heads, whose requests, opinions, and advice, although useful, must not be binding if maximum efficiency of the facility is to be achieved.  

Stratification  

Block studies refer to horizontal layouts, that is, to the layout of each individual floor. These days, however, when high-rise office buildings are the norm and few offices occupy a single floor or single-story building, stratification studies are also necessary. To ensure the efficiency of the total building in question, space planners produce cutaway elevations of the building, indicating where each depart­ment should be located - in relation to all others in terms of the vertical and horizontal layout of the building - to achieve the highest degree of efficiency. A stratification study is, in simple terms, the analysis of proximity required to place departments in their relative positions throughout the building.  

The building shape ideally suited to each set of circumstances - that is, the shape in which various departments can be arranged in proximity to each other in such a way as to produce the most efficient workplace - will rarely be available. Therefore, the space planner needs to locate departments - not merely on one floor but throughout the height of the building - in the best possible arrangements, taking into account the proximity requirements of all departments. Clearly, compromises and sacrifices will always have to be made. They can be minimal, or they can involve a complete and detailed innovation of communications to allow the departments involved to function. Once, it was considered normal to place reception on the ground floor and the executive offices on the top floor of a building. However, because of changes in building technology and the cost of land, several major companies may now be located in one tall building. Therefore, where once elevators, stairways, and corridors were contained within an organization, they are now very often the main form of transport to an organization. Quite simply, new needs produce new rules. Therefore, traditional ideas sometimes must be sacrificed in establishing the stratification of departments within a building.

Simply because two departments were located next to each other 20 years ago does not mean that they have to be located next to each other today. The communication systems and the technology employed will undoubtedly have changed during that period of time. Such changes affect the decisions and suggestions of the space planners, and their recommended arrangements are apt to differ radically from previous layouts. Information about such changes, and the reasons behind them, should be communicated to the employees of the company affected by such changes. Do not expect an employee to accept without question the fact that today he or she is separated by several floors from a colleague whose office was next door in a previous organizational layout. To operate happily and efficiently within the new layout, the employee should understand why the change was viewed as beneficial to the organization.  

Presentation Criteria  

Management often adopts a worried and negative approach to the task of reorganizing an existing office layout or of planning an entirely new facility. This is understandable because the majority of executives involved will have had little or no experience in such major undertakings; yet the reorganization need not be traumatic if the proper input and cooperation are forthcoming from those within the organization who are involved in the planning process.  

In any planning program, the presentations made by the office planning consultants to the organization are very important events.  

For the executive responsible for office planning on behalf of any organization, the basic rules for making sure that these presentations are as useful and informative as possible are to ensure that all designated executives (1) attend the presentations they are expected to attend; and (2) understand fully the reason for the presentation and the relevant points presented, as well as their need and cost implications. Furthermore, all executives should know that they will be allowed sufficient time for raising pertinent questions; that they should be satisfied with the answers they receive or else pursue the matter further; that they must follow through later on the points raised during the presentation; and that the office planning consultants must receive constructive comments and leave each presentation fully briefed about the organization's reactions and directives. If these rules are employed, every executive involved will find the presentations to be informative and interesting, and the full benefits of such active involvement will usually follow as a matter of course.  

Committee Procedure  

Within an organization, most facilities planning is the work of committees. Probably the greatest problem in committee work is general misunderstanding between members; therefore, certain rules concerning procedures should be employed:  

1. All meetings must be minuted, and these minutes should be circulated to all members of the committee and to the consultants and other members of the organization involved in the decisions that are made.  

2. Although it is not always possible to determine ahead of time the length of any committee meeting, meetings should always begin at a scheduled time, and all members should be present. When a member is not present, this fact must be noted in the minutes.  

3. Every committee should have a chairperson who is responsible for keeping the other members informed of progress to date and of any factors that have a bearing on their decision making. As stated before, when the committee is, in fact, the decision making machine of a planning project, its decisions must be based on facts. Circulation of decisions will sometimes result in the necessity to make changes. This must be accepted, and information about such changes should be circulated to all concerned.  

The formation of a committee - and the delegation of decision making powers to it - is usually a matter of contention somewhere in the organization. However, a committee that has no power can only hinder the efficiency of the project. Therefore, each committee must have a defined set of parameters within which it is to work. It must be assigned certain defined powers, and it must receive pertinent information from sources, within and outside the organization, to whatever extent possible and/or necessary. To blame a committee after the fact, when no provision was made to obtain the necessary information, is useless and wrong.  

Selecting the executives to serve on any committee in an office planning project is always difficult, as there are always (or so it seems) far more names for consideration than there are places on any given committee. Generally, one should include the heads of the departments involved in the particular area of planning under discussion, the human resources or personnel director, the office manager, the maintenance manager, and, if necessary, staff representatives.  

A committee should always work within a timetable established by management. If a committee is unable to reach a decision in the individual stages of an office planning project, then control of the project is likely to falter and ultimately to succumb to confusion. Any matter that a committee wishes to investigate further should be assigned a date by which time a decision about that matter is required. On that date, the committee should meet again and produce a decision. It is also necessary - whether several units within a single committee or several committees are involved - that each unit is aware of every other unit's or committee's decisions so that an interplay of information and decisions occurs in the overall planning process.  

Working Drawings  

Once the initial stages of fact finding, design, and selection have been completed, the office planning consultants will prepare construction documents and working drawings from which the project will be constructed. They consist (in most cases) of the following:  

1. Furniture plans showing the layout of the furniture and equipment within the space or proposed space.  

2. Construction plans: These include:

(a)  final layout drawing;  
(b)  demolition plans;  
(c)  construction plans;
(d)  electrical and telephone plans;  
(e)  re­flected ceiling plan;  
(f)    door and hardware schedules;  
(g)  finish plans and color schemes and schedules;  
(h)  sections, elevations, and details;
(i)    specifications;  
(j)    special requirements for communications and computer cables, and soon.  

3. Cabinet and custom-made furniture details and specifications.  

4. Special plans and specifications decided during the design stages.  

5. Graphics specifications, consisting of:

(a)    plans and details indicating where each piece will be displayed.
(b)  complete specifications.  

These plans will be explained in detail below. Clearly, an understanding of them is essential. The decision to accept them should not be made without that understanding. After all, these plans, once accepted, will become the new office complex. It is necessary that the planning executive understand every detail and specification on the documents because, once the physical appearance takes shape, changes are difficult, if not impossible, to make. For example, something that should have been excluded is, by that time, imprisoned in thousands of tons of concrete.  

The best of today's space planners use computer graphics to provide drawings. These have the benefits of extra clarity, reliability, and legibility that can only be gained from this sophisticated method of producing working drawings. In addition, these drawings can be retained in the computer's memory (if requested by the client), available for later use in a maintenance and inventory program. If, for some reason or another, the plans are produced without the aid of computer graphics, a complete set of drawings should be retained by the client for his or her own records; otherwise, future maintenance and inventory control will be that much harder, should the drawings have to be physically produced each and every time they are necessary.  

We shall now discuss in some detail the specific working drawings. 

The final layout is, in effect, developed from the block studies. It shows traffic lanes and indicates each department and its territory within the total matrix.  

The demolition plan shows (where necessary) those parts of the building, partitions, floors, and so on, that must be removed before construction of the new organizational matrix can begin. In some cases, all that is needed is the closing off of an existing door space and the opening of another, but, whatever is involved, these specifications must be checked thoroughly.  

The construction managers use the construction plans to direct the installation and construction of the project. Each and every drawing must, therefore, be thoroughly checked and agreed upon.  

The electrical and telephone plans indicate the location of every electrical point and telephone socket. It is necessary to note the passage of wires, cables, and ducts for future maintenance requirements.  

The reflected ceiling plan indicates each lighting unit, its position in the ceiling, and the wiring that feeds it. This plan also shows the modular format (where used) of the ceiling itself and suspension points.  

The door and hardware schedules are self explanatory. They indicate the design finishes and hardware used throughout the building on doors, hatchways, and so on.  

The finish plan and the color scheme and schedule indicate the materials that will be used throughout the space for wall coverings, carpets, ceramics, and the like. These can be checked with the sample boards that have been previously supplied to the client to determine the exact color and texture of the materials employed.  

Sections, elevations, and details are large scale drawings of specific points of interest throughout the space, showing window fittings, drapery tracks, fixing points, and so on.

Specifications include data that supply complete information about the materials to be used in the project.  

The furniture plans confirm the space studies conducted previously and are detailed enough to be used to explain the facilities proposed to the department heads and other executives involved. These plans show the location of all furniture, storage units, wall units, and other equipment, including those pieces that will have to be specially manufactured. These plans can be invaluable in later inventory control and should be checked by each designated department head.  

In essence, the construction documents and working drawings are the reference book from which the facility will emerge. The ability to read them - to comprehend them - is an essential skill for the executive involved in office planning.  

Furnishing Schedules

The furnishing schedules, which allow purchasing to take place, are usually extracted from the furniture plans and, therefore, should be used in conjunction with those plans. Most office planners and interior designers employ expeditors or purchasing management experts to assist the client's buyers in obtaining and managing the purchase of necessary equipment, furniture, and furnishings. Both the timing of delivery and quality control are most important, and the terminology used in these areas is sometimes unfamiliar to even the most professional buyer employed by the client's organization. Professional buyers are, by nature, forced to specialize. Therefore, to expect buyers who spend their working lives dealing with engineering components, for example, to transfer their expertise to the field of furnishing and office equipment is not sound judgment.  

The furniture schedules consist of specification documents, which include each and every item and the number required, with full details of the finishes. Purchasing management professionals also produce instructions to bidders so that the relevant craftspeople and subcontractors who will be needed will be fully aware of what is expected of them.  

Purchase orders are the key to a successful timetable for equipping office space. They outline what is required, when it is required, and what quantity, quality, and condition is expected. These data should be checked by a professional, either in the client's company or in the office planner's organization, before orders are placed with the suppliers.  

Conclusions  

In conclusion, interior architecture is a professional discipline requiring input from many disciplines. The office planner is able to coordinate all the expertise required. This ability requires experience and systems (methods, paperwork, and follow-up), and the executive responsible for office planning will need to rely heavily on a professional office planning consultant for larger projects. The executive may well be able to organize smaller projects alone; even in such instances, however, ready access to a professional consultant is always a wise precaution.  

Possibly the greatest misunderstanding in the business community concerns the differences among the three professions that together or separately serve as consultants on office facilities. These three professions are (1) office planning consultants; (2) interior design consultants; and (3) contract furnishers. Therefore, let us discuss briefly what each of these three professions normally entails.  

The office planning profession has only been established, in the true meaning of the term, since the late 1940s and early 1950s. The role of the off ice planning consultant is to determine how to use space available to the client (usually an arbitrary space) most efficiently and economically. The office planner, therefore, needs to employ the skills of a designer and a management consultant equally. The profession is, by necessity, one of analysis and learning, tempered by expe­rience. Office planning embraces all the disciplines that contribute to a full understanding of management in an administrative sense, and the office planner uses this understanding to make the most efficient use of the space designated for office use. The office planner is normally a team leader, drawing together the skills of many other disciplines to bring about a functional interior. Office planners will normally coordinate the total project from conception to moving in, and they assume the task on the understanding that they possess the experts necessary to carry it out.  

The conflict between interior designers and architects that seems to have arisen in recent years is most probably based on misunderstanding and egotism. Ideally, architects should be able to design the interior of the building with the same efficiency they give to the shell. However, laws, building standards and materials, to say nothing of communication technology, have developed so fast in the last few decades that, today, the architect often uses all available time to specialize on the exteriors and to keep up to date with current changes. Precisely this situation has brought the interior designer into prominence. Designers strive mainly to achieve an aesthetic blend of colors, shapes, and forms. They are, so to speak, colorists - that is, they fill in the "colors" in someone else's drawings. Designers choose the fabrics, the textures, the colors, and the shapes that are appropriate to the office planner's requirements. Their relationship with structural and service engineers is at least as important as their relationship with the architect. Designers will, for example, make demands on the air-conditioning engineers to place ducts in an aesthetically pleasing position, and they will tinker with lighting until they achieve the required effect. However, interior designers of commercial space are, in fact, an extension of the old fashioned decorator. Their expertise is with color, shape, and form, not with logistics, economics, or function.  

Since the beginning of this century, contract furnishing has developed into an industry in its own right. In fact, there are associations in most countries to which contract furnishers belong. This growing industry has developed the business o