You need more room.
What is actually driving this
The business is booming and the building was sized for a smaller version of it.
There are more people than the space was designed for, and it is starting to show.
This is an active strategic decision, not a forced one.
The expansion is a story you want told, internally and externally.
A second location is on the table.
Growth is the one situation where the decision genuinely does come from within. That makes it harder, not easier. There is no external pressure slowing you down.
What gets decided in the next few weeks
Extend, add, or move. Three different organisations come out the other side.
One place or two. Splitting a growing organisation across sites is a cultural decision disguised as a property one.
How much of the growth is real, and how much is a projection you are now building for.
What happens to the people already there, who did not ask to be part of an expansion.
Capacity is not floor area.
Organisations under growth pressure buy square metres and assume performance scales with them. It does not. The same expansion can improve conditions or degrade them, depending on ceiling height, daylight depth, air supply per person and acoustic separation.
Doubling outdoor air supply per person raises cognitive scores across eight of nine domains. Adding desks to the same air handling does the opposite, and nobody notices until the second winter.
Expansion is the only situation with four different endings.
A new location with new buildings. A new location with additional buildings. The existing location with a new building. Or the existing building, extended.
Each of those forces a different depth of change on the organisation. Choosing the configuration is therefore also choosing how much of your organisation changes.
A new address becomes the front door. The old one stays, and stops being the face.
More space within reach of the existing address. The front door does not move.
New volume on the same site. The entrance can move to it, or stay where it is.
Volume added to what you have. The extension can still become the new entrance.
The configuration decides how much of the organisation changes with it. It is settled before an architect is hired, usually by whatever was available.
The evidence that applies here
101%
Cognitive gain from doubling outdoor air supply per person
Same building, same people, ventilation changed. Air supply per person falls as soon as desks are added without touching the plant.
61%
Cognitive score difference against a conventional CO₂ level
Density raises CO₂ before anyone notices the air. The sensor shows it by the second winter.
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Open plan lowers perceived privacy
Visual privacy dissatisfaction is the single strongest negative predictor of overall workspace satisfaction.
Published in full at The Built Review ↗
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