Building to Meet Business Objectives

APPLICATION EXAMPLES IN PRACTICE (Note: Data has been changed to protect confidentiality) Architectural Briefing System Department of Finance, Victoria Objectives . To standardise the quantity and quality of space provided for public servants, based on the functions they perform, to enhance productivity and equity across the service. To facilitate the provision of new leased space within specified quality guidelines. To calculate the appropriate amount of space required for an organisational unit being relocated to leased premises in order to select candidate buildings. To increase the effectiveness of communication between the parties involved in office fitout &emdash; the client department, the project management department, the designer and the builder &emdash; presenting in a standardised manner the functional requirements for any organisational group. To clarify expectations about the quality and quantity of space to be constructed. . System Structure The system was developed in 1990 using a major fitout brief as the development example. This allowed development of standards on a real project, with extensive management, user and union consultation. A database structure with a record for each space was established, with fields for recording organisational and operational functional relationships, security and engineering service requirements, descriptive information about staff, function of the space, equipment, furniture, fittings, signage, area and dimensional requirements. The individual workspace area allowances were incorporated into the database structure to calculate area automatically, dependent on the staff numbers and classifications entered. Standard detailed requirements for spaces were developed so that these could be automatically entered as a default. These details can be altered by the briefing consultant as required after consultation with the client group. A series of reports were set up to list and check total areas and staffing, enclosed and open areas and number of offices. System Operation Stage 1 - Accommodation Brief The Accommodation Brief files are handed over on a floppy disk for the client agency to complete. This involves entering staff into the database on the basis of workgroups and required common and ancillary spaces. This may be done by entering in each name and classification, in which case the number of each classification and total area is calculated, or the group may be entered by number of staff for each classification. Names are only used for checking, and are not transferred into the Functional Brief Stage 2 - Functional Brief The staffing and space type data from the Accommodation Brief is imported into the Functional Brief file. The Functional Brief files are handed over on a floppy disk for architectural consultants to complete. Their work involves understanding the operational structure of the organisational unit, investigating personal workspace, common and ancillary area requirements and recording this on the database file, with one record for every workgroup, office or other defined space. Separate word processing and drawing files for the skeleton report are included on the disk, as well as a user manual for the system. While originally developed in 1991 to run on Apple Macintosh computers, the latest upgrade in 1993 is fully cross-platform working on Windows 3.1 as well as Macintosh computers. Outcomes The system is easy to use, and has been modified and enhanced based on user feedback. It has been modified to reflect current space standards, where staff have a base area entitlement with increased are allowed for specific duties. More than fifteen briefs have now been completed on the system, several of which have completed construction and are occupied. END OF DOCUMENT Back to keyword index View other Papers