ABSTRACT
Noel Cass (0000-0003-2652-1931), James Faulconbridge (0000-0003-1809-4271) and John Connaughton
This chapter discusses ten new London office buildings as urban infrastructures of work, which integrate numerous other infrastructures, of water, air, electricity, gas and data. It focuses on how these infrastructures are configured in predictable ways in office design due to the power of standards. These standards and their effects are analysed, and seen to comprise both design and performance standards, resting on different regulatory, normative, and cultural-cognitive ‘pillars’ of institutional legitimacy. They steer design according to laws but also norms, expectations and assumptions that produce the normal, ‘high quality’ office. How this steering plays out is analysed as processes of the lock-in of different infrastructures, the ratcheting up of expectations of infrastructural provision, and the unimaginative standardisation of building designs. It is concluded that these processes mean that the infrastructural provision in office buildings is often ‘oversized’ and often out of step with trends in office work.
