Building appraisal: A personal view

This paper describes how between 1985 and 1995, in one building type — the office — a form of Building Appraisal became an operational reality in DEGW, a London-based architectural practice. The context was firstly the aftermath of ORBIT, the DEGW-led study of the impact of information technology on office design and secondly, the consequence of the explosion of new kinds of office development in London from the mid-1980s, stimulated by the rapid growth of the technology-driven global financial services industry, as well as of the technology companies themselves. Initially, this form of Building Appraisal was informed by extensive sectoral user research. As time went on, however, the method became routinised and lost its critical edge. The conclusion is that both Building Appraisal and Design Guides — in office design at least — need to be continually refreshed by new user research because this field is so volatile and subject to technological, social and cultural change.