The development of facilities management over the last 20 years is reviewed. A parallel and similarly retrospective view is taken of developments in office design. There is some reason to believe that both movements have been a failure for the same reason – an exaggerated notion of the importance of cost cutting leading to the predominance of supplying side values rather than serving the real interests of increasingly demanding views. More optimistically, it is agreed that, if both facilities managers and designers (including architects) were to give proper attention, in a period of particularly rapid change, to user interests, then considerable and beneficial innovation would become possible.

Questions the essential nature of the office building itself in a study, The Responsible Workplace, which criticizes the stereotype found in North America and Northern Europe. Identifies two realities which drive the demand for improvement: more powerful IT and more discriminating users. Lists the changing factors which will influence the design and use of the office buildings of the future: businesses, user expectations, technologies, IT and intelligent buildings, building performance, environmental issues, locations, patterns of office work, and regulatory perspectives. Finally, identifies ten initiatives for innovation which will virtually remake the working environment and invent the cities of the 2000s.

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