As Is: modest reductions. It's about individual work, limited collaboration.
This plan represents a pretty traditional space. 

Overall, there are 23,000 net usable square feet, and there are 148people resident there.

We call this one ‘AsIs’ , as it reflects a pretty conventional work pattern, and a very typical office space. We often refer to this as “cube planning.”  It’s based on the assumption that people come into the office to work,and so everyone in the organization needs a dedicated workspace.  
 

Refine: moderate reduction in workstation size, shifting to more team areas.
In this plan,one we call ‘refine’, we’ve made some moderate changes that reflect the changes in technology, work process and culture, and therefore shifts the overall allocation of space from individual work areas to more collaborative spaces. 

One of the constraints that plagues an “I” dominated space is when workers need to collaborate with one another – people struggle to find a place to meet.

In many organizations, this evolution occurs gradually, so you can begin to change your space by re-designing or compressing the size of the individual work station (“I” space) , and use the reclaimed space to create collaborative spaces, the ones that we refer to as ‘we’ spaces.
 

Rethink: shifting toward alternative work strategies. It's about significant change to space, technology, work process, and culture.

This plan – the one we call ‘rethinking’ is about significant change to the space, based on significant changes to the technology, work process and culture of the organization. 

Where it’s different from the first two examples is that now, not only the space is changing, but the work strategy is changing too. That means the company has introduced work strategies often referred to as“alternative work strategies”  such as telecommuting (people working from home all or part of the time), hotelling or or hot-desking.  So for this example, we’ve assumed there are more mobile workers in this organization.  
 

Emerging: supports people working in both the physical and virtual space. It's about fundamental breakthroughs and new discovery.

Now, this last space we call the Emerging Workplace. It’s about a fundamental breakthrough in the way space is designed and used.  This space supports a highly distributed work force, meaning the workers are highly connected via technology, and highly mobile – not tethered to either a workspace or a workplace. 

In fact, workers on the same team may not only be in different locations, they might be in different time zones or different countries.  They need to work together both in the virtual and physical worlds. So when they come together in the workplace, it’s to connect and collaborate.

This type of space is one that reflects a work pattern where collaboration and project work dominates.  The ability of the space to provide for this type of collaboration can have a major impact on an organization’s ability to attract and retain the best and the brightest and foster the type of culture needed to support it’s brand mission.