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Looks at complexity in office buildings and its consequences, desirable and undesirable. Draws on evidence from studies of comfort, control, productivity, health, energy efficiency and human satisfaction carried out in offices in the United Kingdom since 1985. From this work, it is known that many office buildings do not function as well as their designers originally intended. They are frequently uncomfortable for their occupants, especially in summer, and too often make people chronically ill. This results in lower human productivity – a substantial hidden cost to many organizations. Their energy consumption is often excessive and, consequently, so are their emissions of carbon dioxide, which is one of the causes of global warming.

Investigates in depth Sick Building Syndrome (SBS) and the means to deal with the problem. Shows that ignoring job stress can actually increase the incidence of SBS. Modern management control systems should aid in reducing discomfort and make for a healthier and more economical environment. Concludes that optimizing environmental quality and performance should be targets for senior operational managers.

During a survey of a single sick building carried out in the summer of 1988 respondents were asked to fill in a diary of their symptoms on a day‐to‐day basis. Here are some of the results for the lethargy symptom. Nine other symptoms were also included in the study.

The curve on the graph shows an ideal relationship between building complexity (horizontal axis) and the management input required to run a building successfully (vertical axis). It suggests that at low levels of building complexity (of space, use and services) the management input required is also low. As building complexity increases, management input increases more rapidly, tailing off again at higher levels of complexity.

These data come from a survey carried out by Thomson Laboratories and Building Use Studies for the Building Research Establishment. They show the effects of wet cleaning. Cleaning was carried out as inconspicuously as possible over a weekend in one part of an office. The mean number of symptoms refers to the average number of chronic, building‐related symptoms per person (like headaches or dry eyes, which go away again when the person leaves the building) reported by the people in the study area. The control gives the results for another part of the same office which was not cleaned. These data show that wet cleaning (like shampooing the carpets and wiping down surfaces) significantly improves levels of chronic symptoms. Remember, though, that these results are only from one building, so they need to be further verified.

The above graph shows how office buildings affect carbon dioxide emissions. Data are in kilograms of carbon dioxide per square metre of treated area (usually the heated area) per month. Data are based on primary energy, that is the energy consumed by the buildings plus transmission losses from the power station.

This table comes from a study of energy efficiency and occupant comfort in office buildings. We were examining how the building's control environment relates to the services systems and occupancy and behaviour patterns.

Many organizations in higher education are now having to cope with rapidly increasing student numbers, but only have a finite supply of accomodation to meet the new demand. Often their resources for maintenance and facilities management are decreasing as a proportion of their total budgets. Although space utlization and occupancy levels may appear low (rooms may often be empty or half‐full), these use levels are often dictated by invisible factors such as bottlenecks in timetabling.

One of the most prominent findings of the Office Environment Survey was the importance of control to building users. The less control people have over heating, lighting and ventilation in offices, the more likely they are to show losses of productivity and complain of ill‐health.

Office staff were asked whether or not they sit next to a window. Then the depth of space of the building was measured from glass to glass, or from glass to building core.