Evolution of the Workplace

This subject is not offered in 2011.

Admission to a Masters program in the faculty, or approval of the course coordinator.

For the purposes of considering requests for Reasonable Adjustments under the Disability Standards for Education (Cwth 2005), and Students Experiencing Academic Disadvantage Policy, academic requirements for this course are articulated in the Course Description, Course Objectives and Generic Skills of this entry.

The University is dedicated to provide support to those with special requirements. Further details on the disability support scheme can be found at the Disability Liaison Unit website: http://www.services.unimelb.edu.au/disability/

This subject will explore the changes in the form and nature of work sectors over modern times with an emphasis on the Health, Office and Education sectors. The exploration will show how the form and nature of accommodation has changed in response to various economic, social, cultural and technological factors affecting work and its spatial organisation. The scope of changes in the nature of work will include the theories, models and frameworks that relate to: Changing work practices, including managerial, financial, and organisational structure; Industrial relations; Worker rights; Workplace amenity; Organisational Ecology; Impacts of technological change to workplace practices, including information management, communications, machinery and equipment; Urban development and financial aspects of workplace accommodation procurement, including development incentives and investment and leasing practices.

• discuss the general forces and the social and cultural ideas that have shaped the form and design of workplaces for Health, Offices and Education over the last two centuries; and
• explain the differences between functional determinism, new workplaces as vehicles for change versus responses to change, and the proposition that buildings are cultural artefacts and the workplace is a form of human ecology.

• a class paper on a phase of evolution in one sector (20%)a
• a paper comparing the differences in the workplaces of a sector in two continents (40%)
• a paper that projects the current trends into meaningful implications for the planning and design of a current project (40%) all to the equivalent of 7,500 words.

• Becker, F., and Steele, F., 1995, Workplace by Design,
• Myerson, J., and Ross, P., 2003, The 21 st Century Office
• King, Anthony, D., ed.,1980, Buildings and Society, Routledge and Kegan, P., London
• Fitch, James M., 1999, American Building: The environmental forces that shaped it, Oxford University Press, London

This subject is not available as a breadth subject.

On successful completion of this subject, students should be able to: discuss the general forces and the social and cultural ideas that have shaped the form and design of workplaces for Health, Offices and Education over the last two Centuries; explain the differences

between functional determinism, new workplaces as vehicles for change versus responses to change; and the proposition that buildings are cultural artefacts and the workplace as a form of human ecology.

On successful completion of this subject, student should have improved the following generic skills:

• The role of precedent analysis in planning and design;
• Trend analysis and projection;
• Performance based thinking;
• Functional analysis; and
• Critical thinking.