Spaces and rhythms that no longer fit
The offices were designed for a way of working nobody has any more. How to objectify actual use before deciding on a layout or an attendance rule.
7 min readUpdated August 21, 2026
A workspace redesign is almost always decided on two numbers — a surface and a cost — and a lot of intuition. Yet the question is not how many square metres, but which activities have to be possible, for whom, and at what point in the week.
The real question is not surface, it is use
A space is not there to hold people, it is there to make activities possible: concentrating, meeting as three, taking a confidential call, hosting a client, training someone, running into colleagues without an appointment.
A layout fails when one of those activities no longer has a place. The classic case is the open floor where nobody can take a call: the consequence is not a complaint, it is a silent retreat to working from home on the days that require concentration.
Reasoning in surface and occupancy rates does not see that mechanism. It concludes the offices are empty and cuts further — which accelerates the retreat.
What to settle before asking anything
The scope first: which sites, which roles, and what has already been decided. There are almost always non-negotiable constraints — a lease, a budget, a security requirement, a team that has to stay on site. State them upfront, or the consultation will be about what is not open.
The grain next: by team and by role, not by floor. Two roles sitting next to each other can have opposite needs — a support team that lives on the phone and a project team that lives in workshops.
Finally, the status of what you are asking. A preference is not a need: a question that suggests everyone will choose their own setup produces disappointment mechanically. Ask what people do, how often, and what stops them.
Observe actual use
Three sources cross-check well. What people say they do during the week, activity by activity. What they say they cannot do on site, and where they go to do it instead. And, where they exist, occupancy data — room bookings, access — which gives the real rhythm of the week.
Rhythm is the most frequently forgotten variable. An organization where everyone comes in on Tuesday and Thursday does not have a problem with the number of desks: it has a distribution problem. The same walls are saturated two days and empty three.
Watch out for declared use as a negotiating position. It corrects by cross-checking: a team claiming it needs six rooms and never booking two is telling you something about its meetings, not about its rooms.
Spaces and the attendance rule are one subject
The attendance rule — how many days on site, which ones, decided by whom — drives use more strongly than any floor plan. Treating them separately is the most frequent cause of a redesign that does not fit.
An attendance rule is a work rule: it has to be justified by what being present makes possible — a workshop, coaching someone, hosting a client — and not by a principle of control. Stated without a use justification, it is applied to the letter and worked around in spirit.
It is decided at the right level. A team that delivers together needs to be present on the same days; a rule set person by person fills the floors with people who do not work with whoever else is there.
Decide, then re-measure
Useful decisions are named and located: this many enclosed spaces for calls on that floor, one more meeting room here, two shared days for that team, one floor given back there.
Announce what you did not keep, and why. On spaces more than anywhere else, everyone sees the result every day: a decision left unexplained will be read as a disguised saving.
Finally, ask the same questions again a few months after moving in. A layout is judged on the activities that became possible again, not on general satisfaction — which always drops during the move and comes back up afterwards.
Key points
- A space is judged on the activities it makes possible, not on its surface or its occupancy rate.
- Ask by team and by role: neighbours in space can have opposite needs.
- The rhythm of the week matters as much as the number of desks.
- The attendance rule and the layout are decided together, or neither will fit.
These steps are tooled in Syntonie
Questionnaires, transcribed interviews, analysis by team and by role: the platform runs a firm's method on your organization, described once.