Is your floor plan making you money, or burning your money? When it comes to space, every square foot counts – and comes with a price tag Office space planning is very much like getting married: there are many things you don’t know and want to know before you take the final decision, and once you do, you are stuck with it, and you’ll either make it or break it. Of course, a marriage has a greater chance of making it, because love can make humans commit, but good luck getting love back from your space if you didn’t put enough love into it at the picking and planning stage.  Entrepreneurs make decisions to cut corners, thinking that it will save them money, only to discover later that it was a bad decision and that they ended up paying far more in the long run. I know! I’ve...

 The office building, from space wasting machine to money-making machine. Back in architecture school, one of my first projects was to analyze "le familistère de Guise" by André Godin, circa 1858-1853. It was a series of buildings with a configuration of spaces inspired by the principles of people working together for mutual benefit.  To me, that inspiration was directly connected to the origins of architecture itself, the initial principle of which was to provide both shelter and a better way of living. Those principles diverged when money became the motivator for design: to showcase power and wealth. We have that to thank for the beauty and grandeur in architecture which spread from empires to businesses and people as the ideal...

Office Space, ”Get 1 Square Foot For The Price Of 2”. If you are a do-it-yourselfer who wants to undertake your office leasing transaction without a broker, think twice. Leasing an office by yourself is like taking a road trip to a destination you’ve never been to before, without GPS. There are too many variables to consider, information is fragmented and there are too many ways that you can veer off course and kiss your money goodbye. All without realizing that you could've compromised much fewer financial resources - not to mention the fact that everything in real estate costs too much and your final decision, good or bad, may well leave you locked in for years. This is the...