Technical insight · Office

Density is the variable that moves everything else.

A modern workplace brief usually means more people, more meeting rooms, more screens and more occupancy in the same lease area. Each of those raises a load on a system the tenant does not own, and the answer is held by the building manager rather than by the designer.

The constraint

Almost every workplace project increases the number of people on the floor. Almost no base building was sized for the result.

We ask those questions before pricing, because the alternative is a beautiful design that runs warm in December and a supplementary cooling variation nobody budgeted for.

  1. More people per floor

    the whole point of most workplace projects

  2. Cooling load

  3. Outside air rate

  4. Electrical and data load

  5. Amenities and egress capacity

The base building

was sized for the density it was designed for, which is not necessarily the one you want.

The four loads that rise together when occupant density rises. Every one of them is a base building question, answered in writing by the building manager, before the design is fixed.

What decides the programme

Three things, and none of them is the drawing set.

The landlord approval and the fitout guide
Most leases require the design to be approved by the building owner before work starts, against a fitout guide that sets out permitted works, contractor requirements, insurance levels and the make-good position being created. Getting that approval running early is usually worth more to the programme than any decision made on site.
Long lead items, ordered off the plan
Workstations, joinery, specialist glazing, feature lighting and any bespoke front of house element carry lead times that do not compress. We identify them in the first fortnight and order against the design rather than against the installation date.
The building’s own rules
Lift bookings, dock windows, noisy works hours, after-hours access and induction requirements. On a tenanted building these are not negotiable and they set the shape of the programme, so we price against them rather than around them.