Programming office space - Part 1
If you ask a potential client “how much space do you think you need?”, the answers are fun.
They range from “not much” to about the size of “this room”.
Doesn’t matter where you are sitting – the comparisons are always made to your current location.
As a designer, you carefully examine where you are and mentally calculate the square footage of your surroundings. Depending on the adjective used, you double the space, add half again as much or cut it in half. Your potential client, although thoughtfully looking around, doesn’t have a clue about the actual space being needed in their new environment.
How do we get to the real square feet?
Step one: Ask good questions – get you client thinking. They will soon be aware that they need you to convert all these questions in to the number of square feet of useable/ rentable space.they need
Question 1 – “How many people will be occupying the new space”. I love asking this question “.
12 people seems to be the mental anguish point. . Under twelve, the answers start physically. With one full hand open, the person responding often holds each individual finger while naming people.. It is as if each finger has a new name and title. As the fingers are consumed with names, a paper and pencil emerges.
It is curious that under 15 people the actual job function (job description) or job title is rarely mentioned.
At about 15 people, the organizational chart is pulled from a desk and job titles are discussed with numbers of people now and in the future. A workstation requirement for a person, who has a job function or title, is so much easier to determine.
There is an interesting management lesson to be learned by observing this scenario.
12 – 15 people can be managed with attention to the person, how they function and how they contribute to the overall department or company. A synergistic relationship.
Over 15 … it’s an accounting function. A necessary accounting function for large companies.
This in only part one.
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