The British Council for Offices (BCO) has recommended a permanent shift to lower density workspaces to reflect how the Covid-19 pandemic has transformed our use of offices.

Words
David Pead

The pandemic has brought with it an uptick in hybrid working, which has reduced peak office occupancy in most offices since the last BCO occupier density study was undertaken in 2018. In response, the BCO is now proposing a base level occupancy criterion of 10m2 per work setting and 60 per cent utilisation of space. This compares to the de facto application of the 2019 Guide recommendations of 8m2 and 80 per cent which were originally intended for intensively used space.

The BCO launched the position paper with updated recommendations for the Guide to Specification at its first annual conference in three years at Manchester this week.

The paper proposes that “high occupancy densities should only be used when required by a particular occupier group” and that use of space should be reduced from 80 per cent to 60 per cent “reflecting typical office usage rather than extreme levels”.

“This update recommends a utilisation of 60%, resulting in an effective workplace density for core design elements such as toilets and lifts of 1 person per 16.7 m2 for a workplace density of 10 m2 per work setting,” states the paper.

The proposed changes to the key design criteria also include a reduction in the small power and lighting load allowances; new criteria for office lighting and daylighting; revised lift and toilet provision and new sustainability targets; an extended range of structural grid sizes; and improved ventilation, with a higher rate of outdoor air supply per occupier, and better indoor air quality.

The BCO Guide To Specification Key Design Criteria Update 2022: A Position Paper can be accessed for free.

Neil Pennell, Chairman of the BCO’s Technical Affairs Committee and Head of Design Innovation and Property Solutions at Landsec said the conversation across the industry must now also focus on how to deliver net zero faster while ensuring amenity rich spaces for people to work.

“The challenge is how to be efficient and drive down the carbon levels while creating healthy buildings and exciting spaces,” Pennell told Architecture Today. “We need a wide discussion on how to square the balance between delivering efficient and effective workspaces that are also pleasant and comfortable places to be in.”

He said that facilities managers and operators of buildings had a major role to play ensuring that the way a space is being used drives down the energy required during the lifetime of a building.

Many of the key drivers of change have remained unchanged since the last guide was published in 2019 – these include focus on people experience and well-being, the drive for creativity and productivity, use of technology, adaptability for the long term and economic value and return on investment.

In an opinion piece written for Architecture Today in June 2020, Hawkins\Brown partner Nicola Rutt predicted that office culture would see a permanent shift as the result of the Covid-19 pandemic. She said that the function of the office will increasingly be to foster culture and that progressive developers had already been kick-starting this shift with the reassignment of workspace to spaces for collaboration and wellbeing.