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Office workers are hardly ever involved in the design of their buildings. Buildings, therefore, do not match the needs of the users. Today, more and more designers and managers are involving users in the design process. This paper describes different approaches to user involvement and the way ICT can be useful for each level of involvement. ICT can be used as a tool to inform users, to facilitate the participation of users and to create commitment. The paper ends with a discussion on when and how user participation and ICT should be used.

This paper discusses office design in the ‘new economy’. Office buildings of dot.com companies seem to be dominated by colourful materials, luxurious facilities such as gyms or lounge areas and gimmicks such as jukeboxes and pool tables. Employees ‘float’ around in these offices wherever and whenever they want. Such work environments seem very attractive and productive. Still, the meaning and relevance of such ‘fun offices’ can be questioned. In this paper the authors try to explain where this informal and casual office style comes from, relating it to labour market developments and changes in organisational culture. Secondly, they discuss the merits of ‘fun’ office design. How does it affect people’s creativity, their ideas about work and the distinction between work and private life?

This paper aims to provide a better understanding of how architects perceive and use briefing documents. It discusses what type of briefing information architects find relevant for their design process, and how and when briefing information should be presented. It also gives recommendations for clients and consultants that produce the brief.

The article is based on a review of briefing literature, six exploratory interviews with two clients, two architects and two consultants, 18 in‐depth interviews with Dutch architects, and a workshop with Dutch experts on briefing.

A brief (or “program of requirements”) is a crucial means of communication in the interaction between clients and architects. A good brief explains what the client needs, desires and expects from a project. This is all crucial information for the design process. In the interviews, however, many architects indicated that, in daily practice, briefing documents are not as useful as they should be. In their opinion, briefs are often too long, containing overly‐detailed specifications, that are not always clear, consistent or complete.

In addition to the analysis of architects' complaints, six recommendations are given with respect to the briefing process, the contents and structure of the brief, and the status of the brief.

Most publications on briefing focus on the client and brief writing at the start of a project. The present paper discusses the opinions and experiences of the architect and the use of the brief in the design process.

With the globalisation of the economy, more people travel for business purposes, doing much of their work while on the move. Business travellers spend a lot of time at airports and are likely to want to use this time productively. Already, airports have transformed from people processors into places where you can shop, dine, drink and sleep, so why not work there? This article shows that business travellers spend a large part of their waiting time checking their e‐mail, making phone calls, reading reports and working on their laptop. The question is whether they need special facilities to perform these activities. Do business travellers need a dedicated workplace with facilities ranging from colour printers and Internet access, to showers and a good cappuccino? Or just a place to sit with a network connection? This article tries to answer this question by studying the activities and needs of business travellers during their stay at an airport. It is based on a survey and in‐depth interviews among Dutch business travellers.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the origins of today's new office concepts, focusing on the emergence of mobile and flexible working practices in the 1960s and 1970s. Thereby it intends to add a sense of historical awareness to the ongoing debate about the work environment.

The historical description is based on literature study, looking at research reports, design handbooks and depictions of office life in popular culture such as movies and advertisements.

The paper demonstrates that today's “new ways of working” are by no means new. It shows that the concepts of mobile offices, paperless offices, videoconferencing and flexible workplaces all originate from the end of the 1960s and the early 1970s. It also shows that these concepts were far from mainstream, standing in stark contrast to the rigidity and conservatism of everyday office life at the time.

This paper is the first result of a larger historical analysis of the recent history of the work environment. Further historical research will add to the presented insight in the evolution of office concepts.

The paper's insight into the historical development of office concepts can help workplace strategists to make better, more careful forecasts of future workplace trends.

Whereas most literature on the office concept tends to look at novel ideas and future developments, this paper looks back at the recent past. It discusses early workplace experiments that have been largely ignored, or remained unidentified, in much of the discourse on new ways of working.

This paper aims to explore shared use of space and facilities as a concept, and present and illustrate the use of a typology to help classify and describe the different options for sharing space and facilities within buildings for optimised use of a building portfolio.

The content presented is based on a cross-sectional study with an inductive approach. The results are based partly on secondary data in the form of a literature review and a mapping of 20 examples from Europe, USA and Australia, and partly on primary data from observations and interviews with key actors from two cases in Denmark and an illustration case from Ireland.

The typology classifies and describes four archetypes of sharing between different people, building owners and organisations, to be used when discussing, planning, establishing and evaluating new and existing shared spaces.

The typology is the result of a first exploration of shared use of facilities and does not claim to be fully comprehensive or final.

The typology is intended for both researchers and practitioners, and aims at increasing the understanding of sharing as a way to minimise the need for building new by better utilisation of the existing building stock.

Shared space and facilities is a relatively new topic with not much research undertaken. This typology provides a language for discussing shared spaces and a base for further developing the research field.