ABSTRACT
When visiting a building, one gets a strong fi rst impression of the people and the organisation that occupy it. For example: is there a grand entrée, or is it a modest welcoming area? Is the receptionist smiling and friendly, or bored and curt? Are you taken to a bland anonymous meeting room right behind the entrance, or are you allowed onto the work fl oor, having the meeting at the coffee table in the kitchenette? All these factors tell – consciously or subconsciously – a story about the people that inhabit the building. To put it in scholarly terms: buildings act as cultural ‘artefacts’ and ‘symbols’ that refl ect the culture of their inhabitants, expressing particular norms and values about human relations, power, and the nature of work (Gagliardi, 1990; Schein, 2004).
