New entrance to Perceval House


flexible public sector offices. Of primary importance was to address circulation so that customers visiting a building with an address on the Uxbridge Road might be able to enter from that direction rather than through the original reception halfway along its eastern flank. This created the linear customer flows that were considered essential to apply the new service models. The opportunity was also taken to address the separation of building services to permit future sub-letting of space, should the need arise, at the same time as a comprehensive upgrading that would support the significantly increased occupation densities arising from the implementation of BWoW.


New buildings vs. Re-use


Reviewing the very many office accommodation projects that have been delivered by public sector organisations (a number, approaching forty, of which visited Ealing during their planning phases) since the initial BWoW pilot and subsequent refurbishment of Perceval House, there seems to be a significant focus upon the construction of new administrative buildings as the key agent of occupancy change. The regeneration benefits of this approach are often cited; stimulating economic activity in a depressed area through the introduction of large numbers of Council workers or replacing unwanted offices with private homes and mixed use developments.


Indeed the EPT approached Corporate


Board with its proposals to construct a new building to replace Perceval House, albeit with the slightly more prosaic intention of designing offices that could be vacated and more easily let or adapted for new uses as demand for Council office space decreased in line with BWoW projections.


Of the new and in many cases, exceedingly grand, civic office buildings that have been constructed from the proceeds of rationalisation and disposal, a depressing number would appear to have been designed as architectural statements with a worrying tendency to become increasingly redundant as changes in; information technology, service delivery, government funding, the effects of the recession, etc. impact upon the demand for local authority office space. Ironically the current controversy surrounding the establishment of so called, “Free Schools”, in which supporters of the principle suggest that the design of their buildings is of limited importance would be unlikely to be repeated if the subject were the provision of local government workspace.


The


varied former warehouses, shops, community centres and even schools etc. that are proving to be so divisive when proposed as new educational premises would serve perfectly adequately as locations for Council staff enabled to operate effectively by supportive workspace models.


In the event and having weighed the options of a new or bespoke building or to seek a new lease on a refurbished Perceval House, Corporate Board opted to purchase the freehold of the building and carry out a re-fit itself. The first task of the EPT was to define means by which this “spec. built” late 1970’s design could be adapted for modern,


THE TERRIER - Autumn 2011


BSC Greenford - post and scanning operations File archiving and semi-industrial processes


During the research phase of BWoW the EPT identified that the equivalent of a whole floor of Perceval House was being taken up by storage of paper files. The impact of such a graphic representation of a key inhibitor of improved use of office accommodation, combined with the EPT’s proposals for more effective management of hard copy filing, persuaded Corporate Board to support the idea of removing all but essential filing to an adapted former storage building on the Council’s depot site in Greenford, a few miles from Perceval House. To reduce the volume of files to be stored electronic options were considered (“backscanning”) but rejected as the BWoW pilot indicated that only a few of the files that departments were required to keep were accessed at all during a normal working year.


The expensive, semi-


permanent retention in computer form of records that would otherwise be disposed of seemed a compelling argument to retain paper formats but to put in place a rigorous paper management process. The “Business Support Centre (BSC)” as the re-modelled depot building became known was designed, in an EPT phrase, as an “abattoir for paper” in which files were removed from office locations in their original form and broken open to extract the elements of value that would remain stored at the BSC, with strict retention schedules identifying a date for their disposal. The ‘waste’ material of duplicate copies, brochures, outdated documents, etc. were recycled, conveniently, at the plant a few hundred metres away on the depot site. Highly effective filing and ‘picking’ systems allowed files to be delivered by via a tendered courier service to Perceval House in a matter of hours following an


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