White launches office recycling guide

Few environments have wear culture as high as offices. Therefore, White Arkitekter, along with CC Build, has produced a reuse guide that shows what reuse is possible in office real estate – and why it matters.

Office environments are often in a state of flux, with constant moves of both businesses and employees, tenant modifications, reorganizations, ownership changes and new ways of working to be implemented. Post-pandemic, when many continued to work from home for parts of the week, and due to high inflation rates combined with rampant electricity prices, many businesses are now faced with bettering their premises.

2018 showed the project funded by Vinnova Recycling capabilities and solutions in Swedish offices That climate emissions can be reduced by at least 30 percent, and costs by 60 percent, through the reuse of office property. For a 2,000 square meter office with 170 employees, this means saving 2 million kroner, 40 tons of waste and 60 tons of CO2.

White Arkitekter is now launching the Office Reuse Guide, which will serve as a support for understanding existing office inventory from different times and what potential for development and reuse lies within what has already been built.

Post-pandemic, we are navigating a new work landscape where the office as a physical place has taken on new meaning. Redesign, simplification and increased traction to attract employees to the physical office are well under way in many organizations. Appreciating the resources we have and reusing them in a wise and sustainable way is more important today than ever, while the office should be an attractive place. The prerequisite is that we then understand the inherent qualities and opportunities we have in the present, says Sarah Grahn, an architect at White.

Today’s offices must be cheap, rational and superficially efficient, and at the same time they must attract and promote employees who make money for the company. When reusing, it is important to understand the value of previous investments made and to see buildings as potential resources.

– If we can see and understand the qualities and potential in what is already built, we have ample opportunities to carry the offices of the past into the future, without depleting our combined resources. Sarah Grahn says we have the opportunity to preserve both climatic, krona and historical values.

Recycling guide It is built on the three legs of sustainability, cultural history and economics. In the guide, some of the representatives leading the shift to recycled office space share their lessons learned so far and what they see as needs for the future. The guide also reviews the different types of desks through the ages, from the eighteenth century to today.

– Reuse requires us to fall in love with the environments and products we take for granted today – seeing the potential in all we have makes the work a fun challenge, says Fredrik Peterson, restoration architect at White.

The Office Recycling Handbook was developed by the multidisciplinary team at White Arkitekter, consisting of Bjorn Johansson (architect), Fredrik Peterson (restoration engineer), Malin Belfrage (architect and development manager at Transformation and Rotation), and Sara Grahn (architect and university professor). )) and Lise-Lott Larsson Kolessar (Sustainability Strategist). The work took place within the framework of the Center for Circular Build (CC Build), an area of ​​collaboration led by the Swedish Environment Institute IVL.

Lessons learned from office reuse

• Raising the issue of recycling at the beginning of the process.
• Develop and sign a common vision.
• identify existing traits; Architectural, cultural, historical, technical, spatial and physical.
• Identify existing values ​​and communicate them early in the process.
• Inspire and find clients who want to rent sustainable and repurposed buildings, as you contribute to their brand and business.
• Calculate and report potential climate gains through recycling. At the same time, evaluate the financial gains and/or costs.
• See the project manager as a key resource in the recycling process who can direct and be responsible for logistics and is consistently committed to the project’s recycling vision.

here The recycling guide is available as a PDF.

for more information:
Louise Lundberg, Head of Public Relations, White Architects
+46 73722 51 69
[email protected]

White Arkitekter is one of the leading architectural firms in Scandinavia. We work with architecture, design and sustainable urban development in an international context for current and future generations. Our mission is, with the power of architecture, to drive the transition to sustainable living. Our vision is that by 2030 all our projects must be robust in form and climate neutral. We are an employee-owned architecture group of approximately 700 employees with presence in Sweden, Norway, Great Britain, Germany, Canada and East Africa.