Understanding Offices: What Every Manager Needs To Know About Office Buildings

by Joanna Eley, Alexi Marmot

Managers in leading edge companies are becoming aware that their office accommodation is an increasingly significant component of their business cost and profitability, and that it is possible to use offices creatively to improve productivity and employee satisfaction.

199 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

Reviews

[Adrian Buck · Rating 3 out of 5]

The history of Western architecture falls into three phases ; the age of temple and church, the age of the stately home, and the age of the office building. Offices deserve a treatment similar to that we give churches or mansions, it doesn't get it here. Instead we get a business guide to managing office space. So this book may help us to better use the architecture we have, but it doesn't help us to better office architecture. The mundane is discussed in great detail: is it well lit and ventilated? But the higher human needs are hardly mentioned. Does it inspire those that use it? Does it express the values of the organisation it accommodates. Churches do, mansions do, and offices should do so too.

[Paul Ivanov · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this book's title over-promises and does not really deliver. The beginning was quite interesting, but it really got into the weeds (and is quite dated, by now) toward the latter half.