Organizational Needs and Human Values in Office Planning

Abstract

This article focuses on the premise that the corporate environment must be supportive of organizational needs within the context of human values. To be effective, corporate office planning must go beyond the recording of organiza tional needs and user preferences to examine the environmental planning process by which the organization determines its environment. Environmental planning for changing organizations is concerned with organizational effective ness, destiny, and quality of the work environment. Solutions to the first two can be derived through the analysis of the organization and its determinant conditions. The third requires a more thorough examination of planning principles. Only partial static solutions to problems of human satisfaction and development can be reached through user needs analysis. To be responsive to organizational changes, user needs research and corporate space planning must be redefined to recognize the importance of "freedom of choice" in determining behavioral patterns and involvement in the planning and research process by individuals and work groups.