Boundary Objects for Design of Knowledge Workplaces

Professional service providers and knowledge intensive organisations are constantly searching for ways to improve and add value to their business. This has led to an increased attention to space and to the physical settings in which knowledge work is carried out. Much attention has been directed onto the possible gains by using office design as a tool to achieve organisational goals, such as change and innovation, learning, teamwork, e.g. This paper, based on cases in the R&D-project “The KUNNE workplace”, explores the relationship between the business’ goals (and ambitions formulated by the organisation’s management), the briefing process (end-user participation, and formulations of needs and intentions), and the final design. It focuses on the translation from business needs, stated in a business language, into briefing, and different ways to describe user requirements in order to aid the later translation by the architect into design. We will explore the different boundary objects which are used in this translation, as well as different techniques and participatory processes used in order to develop, understand, and describe user needs.