Place-making
Office buildings need to relate well to their surrounding context. This may be intensely urban, or less so in a more fringe or out-of-town location, where landscape may play a greater role in setting the context.
The new planning policy requirements for more mixed uses in buildings to assist with sustainability issues has meant newer buildings are naturally less 'monocultural' in use and form. The necessary adjustments to form and materials to project these differences in use have led to buildings that can help enrich the context in which they are set.
This relationship with 'place', and the creation of a sense of place, contributes to the success or otherwise of an office scheme and the way in which the scheme is regarded both by the public and visitors and the people that use the building.
Because of their scale, usually much larger than a domestic building, office buildings can dominate or disrupt their context and care is required to assimilate their presence so that they connect into and make a welcome and useful contribution to the surrounding townscape.
Office buildings should as far as possible seem a 'natural' part of the place in which they exist, despite their size. Pedestrian movements within the location need to be maintained and other amenities - small spaces, landscaping, trees - enhanced if possible.
The relationship between the appearance of an office building - its form, materials, scale, surrounding landscape - can all be used to make a positive link with, and an enhancement of, the townscape.