COOPERATIVE OFFICE SPACE

BRIEF&AGENDABREIF:The brief for the project was to investigate how spaces in which people carry out office work can en-able them to be more productive, more in control and happy with their work, and better placed to integrate work into a balanced life. It asked to what extent does the environment created by a building affect the work activities that can take place within it.

The project took as it’s client the different communities of people who centre around Euston Station. These were local residents, people arriving in Euston by train, the businesses who have offices there, students and others. The project tried to find ways in which these different communities, with their conflicting approaches and values, could share a common workspace, a public resource that all would have access to, a cooperative office space. The building is sited to the side of Euston station, and is to tackle diffculties people have in accomplishing office work. For example,

The Co-Office is intended to offer a new office typology that could be suitable for established business-es, startup companies, and individuals working on a self employed basis. It offers a range of office accommodation from open plan work spaces for individual working, to spaces where people can meet in different sized groups, and with different levels of privacy. These spaces are available at a spectrum of occupation levels, from permanent occupation for an established company who needs a base from which to operate their business; to semi permanently for small companies who need short term facili-ties as their requirements develop; to short term uses, for a local mother who needs somewhere to carry out a few hours work while their child sleeps, or a group of people who need to hold a meeting near Euston station.

Integrated within these spaces are a full range of support facilities – printing shops, computer/IT maintenance. These include facilities aimed at improving the working conditions for the users – cafe, library, exhibition space, swimming pool and ballroom. These support facilities extend to include pro-grammes to enable different user groups to carry out their work – a laundry and childcare facilities.

Funding:A range of funding options will be required, depending on the type of use, with a significant part funded by the council with the building offering the amenities of a local library.

AGENDA:The project was driven by a set of circumstances, and intentions. The circumstances are that the provi-sion of office space is one of the largest growing types of building in the UK, but the quality of the space created seems very normative. People who work in offices spend more (waking) hours in these environments that anywhere else. How could their architectural qualities be inproved, to increase the wellbeing of workers, and their productivity.

The second circumstance was that office space is shockingly underoccupied, with about 50% occu-pancy during working hours. How could this dispersed use be intensified. This would create encono-mies of space use, and energy, but also a richer collection of colleagues from whom to gain stimulus towards work tasks.

The project aimed to explore different strategies for intensification - interweaving, superimposing, choreographing of functions, layering programmes.

Related to the difficulties of layering programmes is the question of how you make places that are open to the public, shared between different people and all their different needs and concerns. How can places accommodate difference, and the possibility that there are conflicting uses and behaviours.

COOPERATIVE OFFICE SPACE

PORTFOLIO CONTENTS

Work is relationalDeveloping technologies/information torrents

design no. 1: sparkling treedesign no. 2: collaboration deskdesign no. 3: the half/half ruledesign no. 4: collage weardesign no. 5: collage skindesign no. 6: ad-hoc balcony (half floor meeting room)design no. 7: self sufficient zone

(discovering a community and making test proposals)Euston – changing siteWorking communities of euston squarePhasing for a new station complexProposal for the transitionRetrofitting Grant thornton house

Developing a set of design rulesComplex time balancingA plan for woven programmesUser community – planCorporate community member – FreightlinerUser community groupsStrategies for sharing

A series of basketsBaskets as containersNeverending planSpiral planGarden frame structure experimentsReusing articulated steel sheets to make articulated floor slabSlab given extra depth with timber piecesRoofing structure

A building that you can readDevelopment, or, building can offer different face to meet each user’s individual needs and problemsBuilding elements respond to occupationA time landscapeShort sectionLong sectionOrganizational strategies applied to the buildingPlan, level 2Programmatic stripes

THE END

TitleINTRODUCING THEMES

EUSTON COMMON OFFICE – A PROPOSED TYPOLOGY

ZOETROPE – 7 DESIGNS TOGETHER IN A 1 SECOND WORLDEUSTON – 7 DESIGNS TOGETHER ACROSS THE ROAD

7 DESIGNS –

QUESTIONS OF BUILDING FORM AND STRUCTURE

EVERYONE EXPERIENCES A DIFFERENT BUILDING