Why is Design Briefing so important?

I've lost count of the number of times a business has come to me with their "design brief" based on exactly what they already have, with no real thought as to what they are going to need going forward.

“We need a reception desk for 1 receptionist plus waiting area to seat 4; 2 x 6 seater meeting rooms, 3 offices for our 3 directors, 10 desks in open plan, and a small kitchen/staffroom.”

In this scenario, the design brief is based on one persons’ experience, knowledge and work style; and they have just assumed what everyone else needs, without actually consulting anyone else.

But here's what I know:

When designing offices... there is no such thing as "one size fits all."

Every business is different, even within the same industry. And then within that business, their people will have different ways of doing things based on different personalities + backgrounds; the sort of work they do and what they need to be productive.

Different management teams will aspire to create different company cultures, they’ll be looking to attract different types of employees, and different types of clients or projects; and the business premises play a big part in this.

So in order to be able to create a functional workspace that works for it’s users - you need to understand the business: their brand, culture, personalities, communication styles, interactions + working styles of the team; and THEN work to create an environment that supports all those things.

Lets go back to the example above:

“We need a reception desk for 1 receptionist plus waiting area to seat 4; 2 x 6 seater meeting rooms, 3 offices for our 3 directors, 10 desks in open plan, and a small kitchen/staffroom.”

In taking the time to engage with the wider team within this business, before jumping into space planning, we gained the following key learnings:

1. The company actually very rarely has visitors (other than couriers), and when they do the visitors are expected, and often are just wanting a quick informal catch up.
2. The receptionist feels really isolated sitting away from the rest of the admin team, and is more often than not away from the reception desk in order to carry out her required tasks.
3. One of the three directors hates that he’s in an office away from his team. He feels it creates a divide and he’d much rather be in the open plan work area with his team to encourage more communication and learning opportunities for his more junior staff.
4. With more of their business being done via zoom calls, they could actually use some smaller “video call” rooms that only need to fit 1-2 people, but with full video conferencing facilities set up. Their current 6 seater meeting rooms are too big, don’t have great IT, and have terrible acoustics. 
5. It would actually be really helpful to have a bigger (flexible?) meeting room for their weekly team meetings (so to seat 14). They currently do these in the open plan area, but it makes it really hard to present anything properly.
6. The team enjoy being in open plan together, but think it could be more efficient if they sat in their teams. They also find it annoying that there is nowhere to go to make private phone calls, or when they just need to concentrate without interruption… it would be super helpful to have somewhere to go that’s quiet where others know not to interrupt them.

So based on gaining the above insights, the design brief changed to the following:

• Small entry/reception area with a bar leaner or informal lounge setting - maybe connected to…
• A nice staff/client kitchen
• A large 14 seater meeting space (maybe opening onto open plan)
• 2 x 2 seater video conference rooms
• 2 x quiet rooms
• 2 offices
• 12 desks in open plan, but in flexible configurations to cater to changes in teams

The result? A much more functional office environment that truly supports their desired company culture, and supports staff in productive work practices.

Want to learn more about how to create better design briefs? Check out our post: How to nail your Office Design Brief