Manu Umbra - graduation booklet

MANU UMBRA hands in shadow

JULIA LANDREAU

MASTER’S IN ARCHITECTURE, 2026

Julia Landreau Graduation project Master’s in Architecture Mentor: Valentina Fantini Committee members: Laura van Santen, Giulio Margheri Academy of Architecture, Amsterdam, 2025–2026

To Jules, my biggest support since our very first year. We started this journey together as classmates, and we walk out of it today having shared the same path every step of the way.

Because my project focuses deeply on the role of caretakers, it feels only fitting to fully dedicate this work to you. Throughout all these years, you have been the ultimate caretaker in my own life, offering endless encouragement, keeping me grounded, and looking out for me through every high and low of this academic journey. I truly could not have reached this milestone without your constant presence and care.

Thank you for everything.

Disclamer - This publication was produced as part of a graduation project in architecture and takes a declared critical position toward current architectural practice and building regulations.

- It does not constitute legal advice, nor does it claim to represent the disciplines of sociology, labor law, or urban studies.

Research is based on site visits, interviews, and publicly available documentation conducted between 2025 & 2026. Access to certain buildings and spaces was limited by their ownership and management structures.

- The case studies of the shown buildings does not represent the official position of the Architects or parties involved in their making.

- Spatial figures and architectural drawings are indicative and based on available documentation and testimony. They illustrate systemic patterns rather than legally precise measurements.

- The author acknowledges that the experiences of building caretakers are diverse and cannot be fully captured through architectural analysis alone. This publication does not speak on behalf of the workers it documents.

- Legal texts are reproduced in extract form for the purposes of illustration and critique only.

- All interviews were conducted with the consent of participants, whose views are their own and do not represent the official positions of their employers.

- This publication does not claim that any building or institution cited is in breach of applicable regulations. It raises questions about the adequacy of those regulations as a framework for spatial justice.

Manu - the hand, touch, care, physical engagement Man (tenance/ tenere) - the human presence, responsibility, labour (even behind machines) Onderhoud - preservation from underneath, support, keeping something going Cleaning - as an essential act of preservation, not a secondary task Continuation - not freezing something in time Non-static preservation maintenance allows change, adjustment, modification Maintenance as active - not neutral, not passive, not automatic

MAINTENANCE IS AN ACT OF CONTINUATION THROUGH TOUCH. MAINTENANCE IS THE HUMAN LABOUR OF PRESERVATION THROUGH CARE. MAINTENANCE IS THE HUMAN ACT OF HOLDING SOMETHING IN TIME. MAINTENANCE IS THE MANAGEMENT OF CHANGE.

MAINTENANCE AND THE DOMESTIC THE MAINTENANCE-FREE BUILDING WHO CARES? SPATIAL DIGNITY MANIFESTO FOR A BREAKROOM THE ELEVEN SPECULATIONS THE CITY AS SYSTEM ACKNOWLEDGMENTS BIBLIOGRAPHY

13 21 45 91 139 143 191 197 198

12

13

MAINTENANCE AND THE DOMESTIC

14

MAINTENANCE AND THE DOMESTIC

This research began with a question about permanence and ended with a question about people.

The starting point was the cabanon: a hut found along the coastline and calanques of Marseille built from stacked local stone, lime and seawater by fishermen and taken over by factory workers who used it for seasonal work and rest. The cabanon was never built to last a long time. The people who built it knew, from the beginning, that it would need to be rebuilt or fixed the next year. The cabanon was part of a cycle of things falling apart and being renewed.

The maintenance cycle was part of the architecture.

What makes the cabanon useful for the start of this research is not how old it is or how nice it looks but the way it shows the relationship between the person who uses a building and the person who takes care of it. In the cabanon, these are the people. The person who built the wall is the person who fixes it the next season.

The cabanon does not try to solve the problem of maintenance through its design but rather just accepts that care is part of its architecture.

Maintenance enters English from Old French maintenance, meaning upkeep and protection, which descends from the Latin manu tenere: to hold in the hand. The same idea appears in Dutch as onderhoud, from onder, underneath, and houden, to keep, to support something from below, to keep it going by remaining beneath it. Both of these words show that maintenance is something that people do.

It is something done by hand, repeatedly, by someone.

This is the definition of maintenance that I use throughout the graduation: maintenance is the human act of holding something in time through touch and care. It is not a passive or automatic process, and it does not freeze a building in a fixed state. It is an active management of change, one that permits adjustment and modification and does not demand permanence.

15

The cabanon is not being suggested as a model for buildings but a tool to help us see what has been lost in every building that came after it. As buildings got bigger, more complicated and more reliant on systems for heating, cooling, water, power, and digital equipment, the person who took care of the space was no longer the same person who used it. Maintenance did not disappear. It was given to other people, and it was taken out of sight.

When a building becomes too complicated for one person to take care of, who does the maintenance work?

How did the “maintenance-free” building emerge?

Why do architects stop thinking once the building is handed over?

Why is maintenance treated as something outside the discipline?

16

MAINTENANCE AND THE DOMESTIC

Cabanon, Marseille

17

“WHO MAKES IT INHABITS IT”

18

MAINTENANCE AND THE DOMESTIC

19

“WHO INHABITS IT MAINTAINS IT”

20

21

THE MAINTENANCE-FREE BUILDING

22

THE MAINTENANCE-FREE BUILDING

Architecture is typically designed with a focus on form-making, image, and construction, while maintenance is dismissed as something to “deal with after construction.” Buildings need a lot of work to keep them in good condition and that remains largely unacknowledged in architectural discourse.

But this was not always the case and appeared mainly during the Modernist period. Maintenance became a chore and a design failure rather than a natural cycle, as Modernism treated buildings as static machines that should function without human intervention. Alison and Peter Smithson designed a prototype called “House of the Future”, an imaginary home, twenty-five years later. The prototype was showcased in the exhibition “The ideal home”. The then “ideal house of the future” promoted plastic as the ideal material and praised its domestic qualities, such as hygiene and ease of cleaning. It also featured curved, seamless corners meant there were no cracks, grout lines, or baseboards to catch dust. Such a building

was designed to have a finite lifecycle and to be abandoned or swapped out when a new version came out or when it broke.

Fixing a roof leak or a wall crack was not supposed to be necessary. By turning architecture into a disposable consumer object, the labour of maintenance was replaced by the economic act of consumption.

23

House of the Future, Alison and Peter Smithson, 1955-56

Functions as an image of future standards of living rather than an actual prototype

24

THE MAINTENANCE-FREE BUILDING

HET NIEUWE BOUWEN / FUNCTIONALISM Het Nieuwe Bouwen is the Dutch branch of International Modernism and Functionalism that flourished between World War I and World War II. This style was popular between World War I and World War II. Architects like Brinkman & Van der Vlugt, Johannes Duiker and J.J.P. Oud were in charge. They believed in Licht, Lucht, en Ruimte, which means Light, Air and Space. Its architects believed that the design of a building should be based on its function, and traditional forms, ornamentation and monumentality were out. The functionalists were convinced that modern architecture was better than the traditional variety in a number of respects: technically, ideologically, hygienically and aesthetically. It marked a shift when houses were no longer monuments, but were machines for living in. The ornamental architecture and noble materials were replaced by smooth, white stucco which needed constant washing and frequent, aggressive repainting. The Steel-framed windows created beautiful slim profiles, but they lacked thermal breaks. The early flat roofs had poor

waterproofing membranes and cracked, creating leaks and the need for structural patchwork. Functionalism was deeply concerned with health, but that required a hyper-regime of domestic labour. The movement claimed to be rational and low-maintenance, but in reality it created fragile buildings that required relentless human labor to keep up the appearance of machine-like perfection.

25

Huis Sonneveld, Leendert van der Vlugt, 1929

Sanatorium Zonnestraal, Jan Duiker (met Bernard Bijvoet en Jan Gerko Wiebenga), 1928

26

THE MAINTENANCE-FREE BUILDING

Bergpolderflat, Willem van Tijen, 1933

27

28

THE MAINTENANCE-FREE BUILDING

Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Gerrit Rietveld, 1966

29

Glaspaleis, Frits Peutz, 1933

30

THE MAINTENANCE-FREE BUILDING

MODERNISM/ INTERNATIONAL STYLE Corporations adopted the International Style (a style defined by its unornamented, repetitive grids of glass and steel), and Modernism became associated with capitalism. The buildings became literal billboards for the company’s brand, efficiency, and financial health. If the materials were “durable”, the building’s image (and therefore the company’s) would endure as well. Architecture companies’ headquarters should reflect the most progressive examples of their products. Not everything needed to be white and pure, but the buildings needed to look clean because of the image they reflected for the companies. Corporate headquarters became an important site of experimental architecture and a testing ground for material innovations.

Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram Building (1958) used an unprecedented curtain wall made of extruded bronze and amber glass to project an image of timeless luxury, power, and durability. To keep the building from looking “decayed” and ruining Seagram’s premium brand

image, the building entered a relentless maintenance protocol. To this day, the Seagram Building’s bronze facade must be rubbed down with oil by hand every single year for 150 000$ to stop the natural patination process.

SOM did not eliminate labour when they wrapped the Lever House in a seamless curtain wall of glass and steel.

The invention of the motorised rooftop gondola trapped the workers in an infinite loop of washing. In trying to build a timeless corporate image, architects created structures that were entirely dependent on an unacknowledged, permanent choreography of maintenance just to survive the weather.

31

Lever House (1952)

32

THE MAINTENANCE-FREE BUILDING

Seagram Building, Mies van der Rohe, 1958

Worker oiling the façade of the Seagram Building, The New York Times, 2016

33

PPG Place, Philip Johnson John Burgee, 1981

Roof of the PPG Place, rope access railing for window washing done by rappelling

34

THE MAINTENANCE-FREE BUILDING

As I was on a trip to London, I decided to venture into The City district and take a closer look at these huge office towers. I passed by most of the icons (The Gherkin, Lloyd’s Building, 20 Fenchurch..). As I was crossing the London Bridge to reach my final destination, The Shard, I saw two rope-access window cleaners descending the glazed facade of the Northern & Shell Building, suspended above the street on their lines. Around me, people kept walking. Nobody looked up.

It was the first time I had really seen this kind of labour happen, not as an abstract category but as two people in harnesses, working their way down a glass tower in the middle of the City, completely unremarked upon by everyone around them. The building was fully glazed, and the only visible evidence of what that upkeep actually required was the several figures hanging off the side of it, bouncing on the façade, doing the job that the building’s design had made both essential and invisible at the same time.

Since my graduation project started, I began to notice these moments constantly.

35

30 St Mary Axe, Norman Foster, Ken Shuttleworth, 2001 Window cleaners by rappelling

36

THE MAINTENANCE-FREE BUILDING

40 Leadenhall, MAKE Architects, 2025

37

52 Lime Street, KPF, 2020

38

THE MAINTENANCE-FREE BUILDING

The Shard, Renzo Piano, 2013

39

40

THE MAINTENANCE-FREE BUILDING

THE “MAINTENANCE FREE” BUILDING

41

THE “MAINTENANCE FREE” BUILDING DOESN’T EXIST

42

THE MAINTENANCE-FREE BUILDING

The desire for an outside look in capitalist buildings is strongly linked to a need for grand, impressive fronts that reflect the progressive corporate logic operating on the inside. But if a spotless appearance is so crucial to a company’s image, how is it actually achieved in the building’s design?

The outside glass wall needs machines to clean it, but the inside of the building requires a very different kind of attention.

This attention is provided by people who work every day to keep the inside looking perfect. They are the ones who clean and maintain the building, making sure everything is in order.

Who are the people tasked with sustaining this interior perfection day after day, and what kind of space does the architecture actually grant them?

Can cleanliness sometimes overlook the people who make the building work?

43

SOCIAL DIVISIONS OF THE CARETAKER Buildings had to be kept in order to preserve their relationship to the photograph of them distribured books.

CARETAKERS (OUTSIDE)

WORKERS

GENERAL PUBLIC

CARETAKERS (INSIDE)

Exterior maintenance workers are often separated from housekeeping which is normally linked to the office building employees.

Increase in women desk worker in office buildings in early 1950s facing male window cleaners reversing the “spectable” of domesticity”.

44

45

WHO CARES?

46

WHO CARES?

Architecture is typically designed with a focus on form-making, image, and construction, while maintenance is dismissed as something “to undertake after the building is built.” Yet buildings immediately enter a regime of labour; cleaning, repairing, adjusting, replacing that remains largely unacknowledged in architectural discourse. There is always a gap between the idealised representation of a building and its lived reality, a gap that only widens through daily use, consumption, and decay caused by weather and time.

Architecture is designed around drawings, form-making, and image. Maintenance is usually dismissed as something to “deal with after construction.”

I realised: maintenance is everywhere, yet almost absent from architectural thinking.

That gap is where maintenance happens and where architecture loses authorship.

47

48

WHO CARES?

49

50

WHO CARES?

51

52

WHO CARES?

“AFTER THE REVOLUTION, WHO’S COMING TO PICK UP THE GARBAGE ON MONDAY MORNING?’ Mierle Laderman Ukeles, 1969

At some point during the research, I came across the work of Mierle Laderman Ukeles and her Manifesto for Maintenance Art, written in 1969. At that time, she had just become a mother. She noticed that her life was divided into two parts that did not match: the work that people recognised as art and the work that kept everything running. This included cleaning, feeding her newborn and repairing things. She named the second category maintenance art.

Her manifesto started with a question that has stayed with me: “after the revolution, who’s coming to pick up the garbage on Monday morning?” This question shows that there is an idea that we often forget.

When we talk about change, we think of new things replacing old ones, but some things remain the same. Garbage still needs to be picked up, floors still get dirty, buildings still need to be taken care of. Someone has to do these things, and usually we do not see the people who do them.

Mierle understood that what makes her work useful rather than merely provocative is that maintenance is not a private act. It is a public one. The perceived distance between the architect and the maintenance worker is greater than the reality. The building is used by everyone, but yet the work that keeps it running is not visible.

She also understood something about buildings. A building is affected by the weather and by time and is always changing. If we do not take care of it, it will fall apart. Clean buildings are something that people want, but cannot be achieved without people to maintain them.

What is really important about Mierle Laderman Ukeles’ work is that she is showing that what caretakers do is necessary for the building to exist. Without maintenance, the building will decay. The person who cleans the building is just as important as the person who designed it. Both are working on the project but in different ways.

53

54

WHO CARES?

That shifted the question I was asking. I had been looking at buildings as objects: how they age, how they are cleaned, how they fall apart. If we want buildings to sustain, the person who takes care of them matters.

55

Mierle Laderman Ukeless, Maintenance Art Manifesto, 1969

56

WHO CARES?

Janitors clean up at U.S. Capitol 2021

57

58

WHO CARES?

In 2008, Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoîne released Koolhaas Houselife, a film that follows Guadalupe Acedo, the housekeeper of Maison à Bordeaux. The building is one of the most photographed private houses of the twentieth century.

The film records the daily labour required to sustain it.

Guadalupe knows everything about the house. She knows all the surfaces and all the materials. She also knows what does not work well in the house. She is the person who’s between the architect and the person who lives in the house. The person who knows the house best is the person who cleans it.

Rem Koolhaas saw the film and was surprised that Guadalupe Acedo uses a vacuum cleaner on the metal staircase and said: “I am completely surprised that something that is as harsh and exceptional as the spiral staircase is treated with a hoover. It is completely insane”. It shows that it was not designed for a person to

be able to clean it with standard methods.

However, Guadalupe has probably never been given different equipment or training on how to clean the spiral staircase. On one hand, it is the architect discovering, years after handover, that the building was never designed for the person who maintains it. On the other it is the architect still expecting maintenance to follow the architecture, rather than acknowledging that the architecture failed to follow the maintenance.

59

Koolhaas Houselife, Ila Bêka + Louise Lemoîne, 2010

60

WHO CARES?

Joe Koelewijn’s Het Schoonmaken van het Rietveld Paviljoen (1992) is more intimate.

For his final thesis project, Koelewijn asked his mother and three aunts to perform acts of cleaning at the Rietveld Pavilion while wearing the traditional dress of Spakenburg. The work is about the ritualistic nature of cleaning domestic living spaces, the everyday acts of care that are simultaneously ordinary and, in Dutch, doubly freighted: schoon means both clean and beautiful, and schone kunsten means fine art. The women are performing an act of cleaning. The pavilion is made beautiful by these women.

61

Job Koelewijn, Het Schoonmaken van het Rietveldpaviljoen, 1992

62

WHO CARES?

Job Koelewijn, Het Schoonmaken van het Rietveldpaviljoen, 1992

63

The recleaning of the Rietveld pavilion, Alina Lupu, 2017

64

WHO CARES?

Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle’s Le Baiser / The Kiss (1999) works at the intersection between cleanliness and architecture as a critique of modernism. The film shows the act of cleaning as something held between the completion of a building and its unending consumption. It is also about seeing and being seen, about the domestic and the private, and about the maintenance worker as the person who knows the building most completely. To clean something is, in this reading, to love it.

65

Le Baiser (The Kiss), Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle's, 1999–2000

66

WHO CARES?

Jeff Wall’s Morning Cleaning, Mies van der Rohe Foundation, Barcelona (1999) performs a similar operation through a single image. A person cleaning is working alone in the Barcelona Pavilion. This is a place that is often shown in pictures as an example of modern design and perfect surfaces. Jeff Wall shows us the part of cleaning that we do not usually see. He shows us the work that it takes to keep the place looking nice. This is the work that makes it possible for people to take the perfect picture. The building is only ever seen in the state that maintenance makes possible. Jeff Walls picture shows us the work that is being done to keep it that way.

He does this precisely where the building most insists on its own effortlessness.

67

Morning Cleaning, Jeff Wall, 1999

68

WHO CARES?

The Louvre Pyramid is one of the most photographed structures in Paris. Its 673 glass panes are clean and transparent.

The condition that makes this possible is a professional rope access worker and mountaineer who maintains the pyramid using specialised rigging systems developed for high-altitude work. What is interesting about it is how the job came to be. To teach the people who clean buildings how to climb, the building required a climber to do the cleaning.

69

The “Alpinist”, window cleaners, Le Louvre

70

WHO CARES?

71

CAN ARCHITECTS EXPECT MAINTENANCE TO FOLLOW THE ARCHITECTURE OR SHOULD THE ARCHITECTURE FOLLOW THE MAINTENANCE?

72

WHO CARES?

Le corbusier, Zurich, Immeuble Rentenanstalt, 1933

73

A representation and acknowledgement of the maintenance (workers)

74

WHO CARES?

INTERVIEW The following account is drawn from an interview conducted with a worker at a large London office tower, whose name and employer are withheld for confidentiality.

The sustainability manager’s role is to plan and oversee measures to optimise energy use, water use, waste, and other sustainability-related building operations.

That includes working with buildingautomation and smart-building systems, monitoring consumption, setting reduction targets, and evaluating the ROI of efficiency measures. They monitors and adjusts building performance (energy, water use, air quality, waste) and ensures systems run efficiently. They manages both day-to-day operational maintenance (routine checks, smart building automation, occupant comfort) and longer-term sustainability maintenance (ensuring certifications, energy performance, decarbonisation, wellness compliance). They coordinates with many stakeholders (facility management teams, contractors, tenants) to deliver and maintain a high-performing, sustainable building environment.

Ten thousand people come into the building every day. The building cost approximately one billion pounds to construct.

During Covid, there was a fear that people would not come back to the office and the building would become obsolete.

There were changes and adaptations of amenities during the design.

There is a one year warranty with the contractor, covering anything that needs to be replaced. Is one year enough for post occupancy?

POST OCCUPANCY Architecture often stops at the aesthetic.

The sustainability manager has little or no contact with the architects. They would only be contacted if things had to be changed, but only on a design or aesthetic level. The architect is no longer in charge of their own spatial design decisions. The architect is not aware of what does not work once the building is finished, during post occupancy.

What about the people working behind the scenes? In this building, there is not enough space reserved for the building carertakers. Those people are there almost 24/7 and have very poorly designed allocated rooms, with no daylight and too little space.

The facilities team works with a CAFM (Computer Aided Facilities Management) platform that allows workers within the building to flag any dysfunction and manage spaces. For example, a ticket can be opened to point out a disrupted element and describe the problem. They constantly have around a thousand tickets open, ranging from minor to major issues.

The building is marketed as one of the most sustainable office developments of its time, achieving high-level certifications.

However, a critical oversight occurred during the design phase. The engineers based the building’s environmental systems on the assumption that it would be completely unoccupied outside standard office hours.

75

Because of this, the heating and cooling systems were designed to operate across very large zones, sometimes entire sections of the building, rather than offering granular, floor-by-floor or room-specific control. What the engineers and designers failed to consider is that maintenance staff and security personnel occupy the building throughout the night. As a result, to keep just one guard’s workstation comfortable, an enormous portion of the building must be heated or cooled.

Instead of conditioning a single small area, the system forces entire zones, covering tens of thousands of square metres, to run unnecessarily. This disregards the real operational needs of the maintenance and security teams and also leads to substantial energy waste, causing the building to consume energy continuously, 24/7.

Another point of attention raised was the waste generated by fit-outs. Brand new interiors were thrown away simply because a senior executive visiting from an overseas office did not like them. The sustainability manager is also responsible for material waste generated by the building. For example, they managed to find a school that would take over brand new meeting pods that one office was going to throw away.

This role exists in the building because of the different sustainability certificates the landlord is committed to fulfilling across its portfolio, related to GRESB score (an overall measure of how well ESG issues are integrated into the management and practices of companies and funds) and ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) standards. The certifications help mitigate operational risks while ensuring that

certain standards are met for the proper functioning of the building.

However, despite their role, the framework given by the design of the building does not necessarily help ensure that maintenance is done in the most efficient way. When asked whether these “lessons learned” are communicated to the architects or design team, they explained that their firm runs its own POE (Post-Occupancy Evaluations), but the information stays within the firm.

Architects are designing spaces without knowledge of post-occupancy. Most of the time, a lot of mistakes are found due to misconceptions. We believe we can understand how things work without even following the process of identifying how well a building meets the needs of its users, checking whether design goals were met, or finding areas for improvement in comfort, efficiency, and functionality.

Furthermore, even where this information exists, architects often don’t have access to it, or are too proud to ask for it. Yet we are being asked again to design another gigantic building, and we will again assume its own functioning.

When asked what would be the ideal architectural solution, they answered: “something unfinished. Over-designing and trying to tick all the boxes does not help and results in more constraints, waste and inefficiency.”

76

WHO CARES?

The following brings together the range of jobs that sustain a building in its day-today operation. It covers eleven categories of work, from cleaning and hygiene to smart building technology, from catering to sustainability, from security to the emerging roles that buildings are only beginning to formalise. The working hours are mapped and overlapped to emphasise the worker’s presence within a building.

The list is the result of extensive research into building operations, facilities management practice and regulatory frameworks. It attempts to be as comprehensive as possible, covering both traditional roles that have been around for many years and the newer disciplines that are reshaping how buildings are managed and cared for.

It is, however, not exhaustive. Buildings differ enormously in scale, typology, ownership and use, and not every role listed here will be present in every building.

For example, a small office building may employ a single facilities manager and a part-time cleaning operative; a large mixed-use tower may require dozens of specialists across every category, and some roles may be combined into one position, others contracted out to external providers and therefore less visible within the building’s own staffing structure.

Certain roles are specific to particular institutions and may not be present in all building typologies. Furthermore, some jobs may also adopt different titles in different organisations.

More about the workers can be found in “An inventory of the undervalued”.

77

78

WHO CARES?

CARETAKERS’ ESTIMATE SHIFT SCHEDULE 0h

4h

8h

12h

16h

20h

24h

SECURITY & ACCESS Security officer

24h

CCTV operator

24h

Control room operator

24h

Door supervisor

12h

Visitor screening officer

11h

Parking enforcement

12h

MEP BMS operator

24h

Data centre technicien

24h

Mechanical engineer

10h

Electrical engineer

10h

HVAC technician

10h

Plumber

9h

Fire system engineer

9h

Gas engineer

9h

Lift engineer

9h

Water treatment tech

8h

Generator engineer

8h

CLEANING & HYGIENE Washroom attendant

12h

Deep-clean technician

8h

Cleaning operative

8h

Window cleaner

8h

Waste operative

8h

Recycling coordinator

8h

FRONT OF HOUSE & GUEST SERVICES Concierge

13h

Helpdesk coordinator

12h

Receptionist

11h

Meeting room coordinator

11h

Post room operative

9h

CATERING & HOSPITALITY Hospitality coordinator Head chef

Sous chef

Barista / beverage host

Catering assistant Kitchen porter

10h 9h 9h 10h 8h 8h

79

0h

4h

8h

12h

16h

20h

24h

GENERAL MAINTENANCE General maintenance tech

9h

Painter & decorator

9h

Joiner / carpenter

9h

Facade access technician

8h

Grounds maintenance

8h

Handyperson

9h

SUSTAINABILITY Solar / renewable tech

9h

Sustainability manager

8.5h

Carbon analyst

8.5h

Energy manager

9h

EV charging coordinator

9h

Indoor air quality spec.

9h

HEALTH, SAFETY & COMPLIANCE First aider / occ. nurse

9h

Fire safety officer

9h

Health & safety manager

9h

Compliance manager

8.5h

FACILITIES MANAGEMENT FM helpdesk analyst

12h

Move coordinator

11h

Facilities manager

10.5h

Assistant FM

9.5h

Planned maint. planner

9h

Space planner

8.5h

SMART BUILDING & TECH AV & IT support tech

11h

Digital twin operator

8.5h

Smart building engineer

9h

Occupancy data analyst

8.5h

SPECIALIST & EMERGING ROLES Occupant experience mgr

Community engagement mgr Wellness coordinator Active travel officer

10h 9h 9h 8.5h

80

WHO CARES?

DEPARTMENT OVERLAP ACROOS 24 HOURS

SECURITY & ACCESS MEP CLEANING & HYGIENE FRONT OF HOUSE & GUEST SERVICES CATERING & HOSPITALITY SUSTAINABILITY GENERAL MAINTENANCE HEALTH, SAFETY & COMPLIANCE FACILITIES MANAGEMENT SMART BUILDING & TECH SPECIALIST & EMERGING ROLES

81

peak 11 11

11

11

11

11

11

11

11

11

9 8 6 5 4 3

0h

3

3

3

3

3

3

12h

3

3

82

WHO CARES?

The custodian arrives before the building opens. The window cleaner is already working on the outside of the building as the people start coming. The cleaning operative does their job at night when the corridors are empty. This is what maintenance work looks like: the people who do it are around when the building is quiet.

In 2022, Yes Magazine published a photo essay titled *Custodians Ensure Our Well-Being. It’s Time We Ensure Theirs, documenting the working lives of custodians in Seattle. Custodians describe aching feet and backs, exposure to harsh cleaning chemicals, long commutes, and the particular exhaustion of holding a second job because the first does not pay enough to live in the city the building is in.

One custodian put it plainly: “Just because they have a higher education does not mean they can put us down just like that.

We accept that we are custodians, but at least show us some respect, as we show them respect. What if we don’t clean their room? Then they’re going to go complain.

But us, we cannot go complain how they treat us.”

83

The Dignity of Custodians, Sonali Kolhatkar, Evalynn Fae Taganna Romano, Michael Luong, 2022

84

WHO CARES?

The same year, the University of Washington published Custodians Share Covid Experiences, Show Pride in Their Work in Art Exhibit. It was about how maintenance and cleaning workers were the first to go back to work during the pandemic. They had to deal with conditions that other people were not permitted to return to.

This is a question that architects do not usually ask. In 2024 the University of Washington Facilities Services published a photo essay called *A Day in the Life of a UW Custodian*. It followed a custodian for a day: from the early morning to the end of their shift. What the essay makes visible, almost incidentally, is how little of the building belongs to the person maintaining it. The spaces the custodian uses are designed for others or what would be considered the main users of the building (students, tenants, visitors, residents, etc.). The question of what’s designed for the caretaker is not really answered.

85

A collection of window cleaners

86

WHO CARES?

The discipline of architecture produces an enormous body of documentation: drawings, photographs, critical writing, awards, monographs. That documentation records lobbies, facades, floor plates, amenity spaces, circulation routes, material choices. They barely show the room where the cleaning operative keeps their equipment, or the space where the security officer takes a break or where the window cleaner changes their clothes, but these rooms are in every building.

This absence is not accidental. It reflects a consistent assumption embedded in how buildings are designed and how design is communicated: that the subjects of architecture are the people who occupy its primary spaces. They are just provided because they have to be, and they are the minimum required.

What does this minimum look like? Where is it in the building? What does it say about who the building’s for and who is not important?

87

Unable to earn a college degree herself, Elsa Tesfai says she loves to be around students getting their education.

Photo: Dennis Wise/University of Washington

For “(in)Visibility,” Gina Tabasan took a picture of her mask. She said, “How will it help if we don’t have the shot yet? How will it help if it’s wet?”

Photo: Dennis Wise/University of Washington

88

WHO CARES?

A day in the life of a UW custodian, Francis Garcia, 2024

89

90

91

SPATIAL DIGNITY

92

SPATIAL DIGNITY

Spatial dignity is the term that names what is missing. It starts from a simple premise: every worker has an essential right to a workspace that reflects their equal worth as a human being, regardless of their role or status within a building’s hierarchy. But in practice, caretakers are formally and financially insiders and are treated like outsiders. They travel the entire length of the building, traversing the most valued spaces, moving through glazed walls, lobbies the height of two stories; they sometimes have no fixed workplace. The dedicated facilities are allocated in areas of the building which do not attract rent (changing rooms, break rooms, lockers, cooking facilities, access to drinking water) and are ignored. Those are the worst spaces in the building: little daylight, far too small, located next to machine rooms and chemical storage areas, built to fulfil some sort of compliance requirement rather than to house a living person. Such spaces should at a minimum provide for a number of considerations: amount of light available per worker, square meters allocated per worker, neighbouring facilities, and what I would like to call

“circulation dignity” - the right of every worker to circulate through the spaces of the building via paths not defined by their social invisibility.

We cannot claim to design buildings that retain their image value while simultaneously designing no spaces that allow their maintenance, and by implication, maintenance to be dignified.

The break room cannot be a spare room; it is where a building remains in place over time, and the design of that room should be as thoughtfully executed as that of the building’s lobby, or otherwise we design for the photograph and abandon the building upon its delivery.

93

94

SPATIAL DIGNITY

TYPOLOGIES OF SPATIAL MARGINALISATION

95

Space is not neutral. Buildings are often designed around their primary function, leaving what is labelled “secondary” overlooked and rendered invisible.

Caretakers may be formal and financial insiders yet still be treated like outsiders, as the absence of basic spaces (for instance, to take a break) forces them into hidden or improvised areas.

“Typologies of spatial marginalisation” maps the condition across building typologies, taken from different contexts and represents different scales. The examples try to shed light on the system that places caretakers in the leftover spaces. The floor plan extract of each building is drawn with the caretaker space filled in red.

In every case, the rooms reserved for the people who maintain the building are located in the basement, or at the back, or in a space that does not count toward the exploitable area of the floor plan. They have little to no daylight, are small and are adjacent to storage rooms, plant rooms, and service corridors. The drawings

show the caretaker spaces relative to the total building area, indicating how much space is allocated to those who maintain it. Furthermore, it also represents the disparity between the area provided and the number of people it is expected to serve.

More about the Typologies of spatial marginalisation can be found in “An inventory of the undervalued”.

96

SPATIAL DIGNITY

DOMESTIC DOMAIN

-1 BASEMENT

location dedicated space for caretakers

97

CASA LA ENCANTADA III

CARETAKERS’ ROOMS

LEVEL: GROUND FLOOR

Architect: Javier Artadi Location: Lima, Peru Date: 2010 Area: 560 m²

The service quarters and maids’ room are located toward the rear interior of the primary volume next to the kitchen and main service entrance.

Spatial indicator

A minimalist, white geometric block designed for a coastal wetlands setting.

The built volume is pushed along a single axis to maximize open land for a continuous lawn, terrace, and swimming pool.

Total building area

Spatial allocation for caretakers 3,78%

98

SPATIAL DIGNITY

“The legal framework is defined by the Lebanese Construction Law which contains several clauses relating to domestic worker lodging. First, it should be noted that the Law refers to domestic workers’ lodgings as “servants’ rooms” and even goes so far as to refer to the “servant” in one particularly revealing instance in the feminine form.“ “This worker room type is chunked together throughout the text with other types such as storage rooms, laundry rooms, and outhouses that are primarily not designed to contain people for extended periods of time.”

“The primary purpose of this grouping is to delineate the room types that do not factor into the general floor area ratio (translation from Arabic. [...]

Another purpose of this grouping is to

exempt these rooms from the obligation of having “unobstructed” windows In a nutshell, the maid’s room does not factor into the exploitable area of a plot, must not exceed eight meters squared and is not required to have viable windows.”

The 5m² Maid’s Room: Lebanon’s Racist, Gendered Architecture Basyma Saad, Failed Architecture

99

Caretakers room in private villas

100

SPATIAL DIGNITY

Caretakers room in private villas

101

Caretakers room in private villas

102

SPATIAL DIGNITY

kitchen

laundry room

worker bedroom

worker bathroom

minimum daylight

minimum space

103

division

with accessibility

kitchen

laundry room

worker bedroom

worker bathroom

104

SPATIAL DIGNITY

FORCED INVISIBILITY Certain architectural spaces operate through restriction and concealment, allocating minimal space while enforcing invisibility through controlled openings, sealed corridors, and spatial separation.

These conditions echo what Michel Foucault describes as “heterotopias of deviation” or spaces designed to contain what does not conform to the norm. Rather than neutral, such containers suggest how architecture can regulate presence, visibility, and access through design.

Buildings are typically designed around their primary functions, while the secondary functions that sustain them are often overlooked or rendered invisible.

This results is space created by power dynamics and social relationships. It forms networks that connect smaller locations to larger institutional frameworks. Essential forms of labour take place alongside core activities without being fully acknowledged. As a result, workers may be “formally and financially insiders” yet still be “treated like outsiders,” as the absence of basic spaces for rest or changing forces

their work into hidden or improvised areas. For instance “universities do not provide a changing room to them but request them to use uniforms”. Similarly, the lack of adequate break rooms, such as poorly ventilated basement spaces or overcrowded common rooms, signals that cleaners are not afforded the same right to rest or privacy. This spatial organisation produces forced invisibility by marginalising necessary labour through the denial of dedicated, visible space.

In-House, yet “Standing Somewhere off”: Spatial Reflections on the Enduring Marginality of Cleaning Staff in High-Ranking London Universities Alma Kaiser*

105

“BEING FORMALLY AND FINANCIALLY INSIDERS BUT FEELING TREATED LIKE OUTSIDERS“

106

SPATIAL DIGNITY

EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION

-1 BASEMENT

location dedicated space for caretakers

107

LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS

Architect: Grafton Architects Location: London, UK Date: December 2021 Area: 18,100 m²

The caretakers’ room is located in the basement floor.

Spatial indicator

An urban academic facility spanning ten upper floors and two basement levels.

The ground level features a large, open public plaza known as the Great Hall, which connects the building directly to the street grid. Classrooms and teaching spaces sit on the lower floors, academic offices sit on floors three through nine, and the athletic facilities are housed in the subterranean basement levels.

Total building area

Spatial allocation for caretakers 0,22%

108

SPATIAL DIGNITY

SURVEY

109

DISCLAIMER A survey was conducted to gather insights into the daily experiences and spatial conditions of workers. The survey was distributed to 2 office workers in London and the remainder to members of the caretaker workforce. Unfortunately, the survey responses do not lead to definitive conclusions, largely due to the fact that caretakers were reluctant to share detailed information in order to protect their privacy. However, some participants did provide helpful comments that shed light on their working conditions. Notably, several caretakers indicated that they do not use the basement welfare facilities and would rather go out of the building for basic needs such as lunch breaks. This preference to leave the building rather than use the allocated spaces suggests inadequacy or discomfort with the provided facilities. Additionally, through both survey feedback and examination of the building layout, it became apparent that something as simple as a water tap to refill a water bottle is missing for caretakers on the ground floor. This means that staff must walk down to the basement kitchen just to access drinking water. One respondent noted that despite working in the naturally daylit entrance lobby, the receptionist station

is so cold that electric heaters had to be placed under the desks. Furthermore, I received feedback indicating that caretakers are not permitted to use the building’s amenities, and even if they attempted to, their uniforms would make their presence immediately visible and identifiable, effectively marking them as out of place. These observations, though limited, reinforce the spatial and practical disadvantages faced by maintenance workers in their daily routines.

110

SPATIAL DIGNITY

This survey assesses the quality and adequacy of workplace spaces for educational purposes.

This is part of my thesis project in architecture. Your answers help to understand what works well and what could be improved when Workplace Spatial Quality, Dignity & Equity Assessment This survey assesses the quality and adequacy of workplace spaces for educational purposes.

This is part of my thesis project in architecture. Your answers help to understand what works well and what could be improved when designing spaces. There are no right or wrong answers. Thank you for your precious time an Scoring scales:

Adequacy (A)

Absent

Absent Exposure (E)

Workplace Spatial Quality, Dignity & Equity Assessment Scoring scales:

Adequacy (A)

0,5

Good

Excellent Repeated

Frequent

Prolonged

Bare minimum

Adequate

Good

Repeated

Frequent

Prolonged

0,5

0,75

Short 1 1

2

1,2

Control None(C)

Control (C)

Adequate

1

Short 1

0,5

Exposure (E)

Bare minimum

1,5

None

Limited

High

0,5

3

1,75

4

4

1

7

1

119,0

Max score Category

Variable

Adequacy (A)

Exposure (E)

Control (C)

Weighted

2

1,5

0,5

1,5

Gabriele I Architect Personal floor area

Variable Usable area per person

Environmental Quality

Adequacy (A) 2

Exposure (E) 0,75

1,75

0,5

0,5

2

1,2

0,75

1,8

Ceiling height

Perceived vertical space

3

1,75

0,5

2,625

4

1,75

0,75

5,25

Visual connection to outside

2

1,75

0,75

2,625

1

1

0,5

0,5

Daylight access

Quality of natural light

3

1,75

1

5,25

1

1

0,5

0,5

Window proximity

Distance to daylight source

3

1,75

1

5,25

1

1

0,5

0,5

Artificial lighting

Electric lighting adequacy

Personal floor area Fresh air control

3

1,75

1

5,25

4

0,5

Temperature comfort

1

Noise and sound control

1

Acoustic comfort Furniture quality

Daylight & View

Personal storage Food & drink facilities Privacy Spatial location Safety Cleanliness

Environmental Quality

2

Break/rest space Ceiling height Ergonomics & comfort

3

Space for belongings

2

View quality Access to food/water

4

Visual/acoustic privacy Daylight access

2

Central vs back-of-house

2

Window Safe accessproximity & exits

3

Hygiene & maintenance

2

Artificial lighting

Ventilation / air quality Score

Usable area per 0,75 person 2,625 1,75

22

1,75

1,50,5

3,5

1,2

3

1,5

0,5

2,25

3

1,5

Space available for resting 1,75

0,75

1,3125

1,75

0,75

1,3125

Perceived 1,75 vertical1 space 5,25 1,2

1,8

0,75

1 33

1,5

Visual connection to outside 1,5 0,75 4,5

0,5

2,25

0,5

1

1,75

3

1,5

1,5 natural 0,75 Quality of light 1,75

0,5

24 3

Distance1,5to daylight source 0,5 2,25

33

Electric lighting adequacy

3

39

1,75

0,75

27,45

12,5

2,625

Fresh air control

48,675

2,9

1 1,75

1,5

3

1,5

40

23,4

2

0,5

1,751

7

0,75

0,25

1,751

4,5

1

1,75 1,75

Noise and sound control

1

1,75

Amenities & Comfort

Furniture quality

Ergonomics & comfort

3

1,75

Oz I Front of House Officer

Personal storage

Daylight & View

Personal floor area Break/rest space Ceiling height View quality Daylight access

Perceived vertical space

Environmental Quality

Amenities & Comfort

Artificial lighting

Safety & Wellbeing

1,75

0

3

1,5

0

2

1,75

0,

39

27,45

12

Adequacy (A)

Exposure (E)

Usable area per person

3

0,5

2,25

1,5

0,5

2,25 2,25

0,5 2,625 Hygiene1,75 & maintenance

1

1,5

0,5

0,75

1

1,75

0,5

0,875

Acoustic comfort

Noise and sound control

3

1,75

0,5

Furniture quality

Ergonomics & comfort

3

1

0,5

Personal storage

Space for belongings

1

1,75

0,5

Access to food/water

3

1,5

0,5

Visual/acoustic privacy

2

1,5

0,5

Spatial location

Central vs back-of-house

2

1,5

0,5

1,5

Safety

Safe access & exits

3

1,75

0,75

3,9375

Cleanliness

Hygiene & maintenance

2,625

Personal floor area

View quality Daylight access Window proximity Artificial lighting Thermal comfort

Environmental Quality Acoustic comfort Furniture quality Personal storage Food & drink facilities Privacy

3

1,75

0,5

43

26,45

8,75

2,625

1,5 Score 0,875

2,25 Average 1,5

34,6375

2,0

Average

Personal floor area

Adequacy (A)

Exposure (E)

Control (C)

Weighted

Cont

3

1,75

0

Usable area per person Break/rest space

2

1,5 0,75 resting 2,25 Space available for

2

1,2

0

Ceiling height Perceived vertical space

3 Perceived 1,5 vertical 0,5space 2,25

3

1,5

0

Visual connection to outside 3 1,5 0,5 2,25

4

1,5

0

Space available for resting

2

Visual connection to outside

2

View quality Quality of natural light Daylight access

Ergonomics & / comfort Ventilation air quality Space for belongings

Thermal comfort Access to food/water Visual/acoustic privacy

1,2

0,5

1,2

1,5

0

0,75

3,375

1,5

0

4

Electric lighting adequacy 1,5 0,75 4,5

3

1,75

0

4

Fresh air1,5control 0,75

4,5

1

1,5

0

Temperature comfort 1,75 0,5

2,625

1

1,75

0

3

Temperature comfort

2,625

3

Electric lighting adequacy

Artificial lighting Noise and sound control

0,75

3

2

Window proximity Fresh air control

1,75

Distance1,5to daylight 0,75 source 4,5

Distance to daylight source

Ventilation / air quality

Agency

0,

2

1,5

1,5 back-of-house 0,5 3 Central vs

Temperature comfort

Ceiling height

Amenities & Comfort

1,5

Fresh air control

Break/rest space

Environmental Quality

2

Thermal comfort

Martha I Sustainability Manager

Daylight & View

0,

1,2

1,2 0,5 Visual/acoustic privacy

Ventilation / air quality

Spatial Quantity

Daylight & View

2,625

2

Electric lighting adequacy Cleanliness

Oz I Front of House Officer Spatial Quantity

0,

1,5

& exits 3 Safe access 1,5 0,5

Score

0,

1,2

3

Overal the ground floor is a good space. Bad smell of sewer from gutter or so.

0,

4

Quality of natural light

& drink facilities No comments. Food Agency Privacy

2,6

2

4

Safety & Wellbeing Window proximity Safety Distance to daylight source

0,

44,875

Weighted

3

Visual connection to outside Spatial location

4,5

3 Access to 1,75food/water 0,5

Adequacy (A)

Space available for resting Privacy

1,75

0

0,

4,5

11,75

Acoustic comfort

Exposure (E) Control (C) Space for belongings

0,375

0,5 1,75 1

0

2,25 3,375

Temperature comfort

Food &area drink facilities Usable per person

No comments.

1

1

0

1,2

1,75 0,75

Thermal comfortAverage

No comments.

Agency

Cont

2,625

1

Amenities & Comfort

Spatial Quantity

1 Weighted

1

Thermal comfort

Safety & Wellbeing

Control (C)

Space available for resting

Ventilation / air quality

Agency

1,75

Break/rest space Daylight & View View quality Gabriele I Architect

Spatial Quantity

4 Adequacy (A) Exposure (E)

Gabriella I Architect

Spatial Quantity

Category

Exce

1,75

High

0,75

1,75

3

1,5

Limited

1

Max score

1,2

2

4 3

4 3 4

Quality of natural light 1,2

0,5

1,2

1,5

0,5

2,25

1,5

1,5 1,2

0,5 0,5

3 2,4

111

quality and adequacy of workplace spaces for educational This survey assesses purposes. the quality and adequacy of workplace spaces for educational purposes. roject in architecture. Your answers help to understand This is part what of my works thesis wellproject and what in architecture. could be improved Your answers when help designing to understand spaces. There what works are nowell rightand or wrong what could answers. be improved Thank youwhen for your designing precious spaces. time and There help! are no right or wrong answers. Thank yo

ity, Dignity & Equity Assessment

Workplace Spatial Quality, Dignity & Equity Assessment Scoring scales:

acy (A)

Absent

Bare minimum

Adequacy Adequate (A)

Good Absent

sure (E)

Short 1

Repeated

Exposure Frequent (E) 1,5

0,5

Limited 0,75

Control High (C)

Prolonged Short 1,75 1

1

0,5

0,5

trol (C)

None

1

2

1,2

Max score

Variable

ct

Category

0,5 3

Excellent 4

Good

Repeated

Frequent

Prolonged

Limited

High

2

1

Control (C)

7

119,0

3

1,5

0,75

1,75

Adequacy (A) Variable Exposure (E)

Adequate

1

1,2

None

4

Bare minimum

Excellent 4

1,75

1

Max score

Weighted

4

1,75

Adequacy (A) Exposure Exposure (E)(E)

Gabriele I Architect

1

Control Control(C) (C)

7

119,0 Weighted

Gabriella I Architect

Spatial Quantity

Adequacy (A) Exposure (E)

C

Gabriella I Architect

Personal floor area

Usable area per person

2

Personal floor 1,5 area

0,5 Usable area per 1,5person

22

1,75 1,5

0,75 0,5

2,625 1,5

2

Break/rest space

Space available for resting

1

Break/rest space 1

0,5 Space available 0,5for resting

21

1,21

0,75 0,5

0,5 1,8

2

1,2

Ceiling height

Perceived vertical space

3

Ceiling height 1,75

0,5 Perceived vertical 2,625space

43

1,75 1,75

0,75 0,5

2,625 5,25

4

1,75

View quality

Visual connection Daylight to&outside View

2

View quality 1,75

0,75 Visual connection 2,625 to outside

12

1,75 1

0,5 0,75

2,625 0,5

1

1

Daylight access

Quality of natural light

3

Daylight access 1,75

13

1,75 1

0,5 1

5,25 0,5

1

1

Window proximity

Distance to daylight source 3 Window proximity 1,75 1Distance to daylight 5,25 source 13 1,75 1 0,5 1 5,25 0,5 1 1 This survey assesses the quality adequacy spaces lighting for educational purposes.

Electric lighting Environmental adequacy Quality 3 and Artificial lighting 1,75of workplace1Electric 5,25 adequacy 43 1,75 1,75 0,5 1 5,25 3,5 4 1,75 This is part of my thesis project in architecture. Your answers help to understand what works well and what could be improved when designing spaces. There are no right or wrong answers. Thank yo Fresh air control 2 Ventilation1,75 / air quality 0,75 Fresh air control 2,625 22 1,2 1,75 0,5 0,75 2,625 1,2 2 1,2

Artificial lighting Ventilation / air quality Thermal comfort Acoustic comfort Furniture quality Personal storage Food & drink facilities Privacy Spatial location Safety Cleanliness

1Quality of natural 5,25 light

Temperature comfort 1 Thermal comfort 1,75 0,75 Temperature 1,3125 comfort Workplace Spatial Quality, Dignity & Equity Assessment Noise and sound control 1 Acoustic comfort 1,75 0,75 Noise and sound 1,3125 control ErgonomicsAmenities & comfort& Comfort 3 Furniture quality 1,75 Scoring scales: Space for belongings 2 Personal storage 1,2 Adequacy (A) Absent Access to food/water 4 Food & drink 1,5facilities 0,5 Visual/acoustic Agency privacy 2 (E) Privacy 1,5 Exposure Short Central vs back-of-house 2 Spatial location 1,75 1 Safe accessSafety & exits& Wellbeing Control3 (C) Safety 1,5 None Hygiene & maintenance

2

Score

39

31

1,5 1,75

0,5 0,75

1,3125 2,25

3

1,5

31

1,5 1,75

0,5 0,75

1,3125 2,25

3

1,5

1Ergonomics & 5,25 comfort

33

1,5 1,75

0,75 1

3,375 5,25

3

1,5

0,75 Space for belongings 1,8 Bare minimum 0,75 Access to food/water 4,5 1 0,75 Visual/acoustic 2,25 privacy Repeated

0,5 2 Adequate 44 2 0,5 2 Frequent

11,2 Good 1,75 1,5 3 11,5 Prolonged

0,75 0,75 Excellent 0,75 1 4 0,5 0,75

0,375 1,8

0,5

1

4,5 7

4

1,75

2,25 0,25

0,5

1

0,5 1

1,75 4,5

3

1,5

0,5 Safe access & 2,25 exits Limited 0,75 Hygiene & maintenance 2,625 0,75

1,5 1,75 1,75 1,5 1,5

0,5 1

2,25 4,5

3

1,5

321

1,5 1,75

0,75 1

2,625 4,5

3

1,5

23,4 27,45

11,75 12,5

40

23,4

0,5 Central vs back-of-house 1,75 1,2

Cleanliness 1,75 0,5

27,45

12,5

score Score 48,675 Max

2,9

Average No comments.

Category

Average

Variable

31,5 2 33 High

40 39 4

1,75

1

7 48,675 44,875

Control (C)

Weighted

No comments.

Adequacy (A)

Exposure (E)

119,0 2,9 2,6

Gabriele I Architect

e Officer

Oz I Front of House Officer Adequacy (A) Exposure (E)

Personal floor area

Control (C) Weighted Usable area per person

Personal floor area

Usable area per person

3

Break/rest space

2

Ceiling height

Space available for resting Daylight & View Perceived vertical space

View quality

Visual connection Daylight to&outside View

4

Daylight access

3

Window proximity

Quality of natural light Environmental Quality Distance to daylight source

Artificial lighting

Electric lighting Environmental adequacy Quality

3

Ventilation / air quality

Fresh air control

1

Thermal comfort

1

Acoustic comfort

Temperature comfort Amenities & Comfort Noise and sound control

Furniture quality

ErgonomicsAmenities & comfort& Comfort

3

Personal storage

Space for belongings Agency Access to food/water

1 2

Spatial location

Visual/acoustic Agency privacy Safety & Wellbeing Central vs back-of-house

Safety

Safe accessSafety & exits& Wellbeing

3

Break/rest space Personal floor 1,75area Ceiling height Break/rest 1,2 space View quality Ceiling height 1,5 Daylight access View quality 1,5 Window proximity Daylight access 1,5 Artificial lighting Window proximity 1,5 Ventilation / air quality Artificial lighting 1,75 Thermal comfort Ventilation1,5 / air quality Acoustic comfort Thermal comfort 1,75 Furniture quality Acoustic comfort 1,75 Personal storage Furniture quality 1 Food & drink facilities Personal storage 1,75 Privacy Food & drink 1,5facilities Spatial location Privacy 1,5 Safety Spatial location 1,5 Cleanliness Safety 1,75

Cleanliness

Hygiene & maintenance

3

Cleanliness 1,75

43

26,45

Food & drink facilities Privacy

No comments.

Score

3

3

3

3 2

0,5 Hygiene & maintenance 2,625

8,75 34,6375

Oz I Front of House Officer Martha I Sustainability AdequacyManager (A) Exposure (E) Spatial Quantity Spatial Quantity

Personal floor area

Usable area per person

2

Break/rest space

Space available for resting

2

Ceiling height

3

View quality

Perceived vertical space Daylight & View Visual connection Daylight to&outside View

Daylight access

Quality of natural light

3

Window proximity

2

Artificial lighting

Distance to daylight source Environmental Quality Electric lighting Environmental adequacy Quality

Ventilation / air quality

Fresh air control

4

Thermal comfort

Temperature comfort

3

Acoustic comfort

4

Furniture quality

Noise and sound control Amenities & Comfort ErgonomicsAmenities & comfort& Comfort

Personal storage

Space for belongings

4

Food & drink facilities

Access to food/water Agency Visual/acoustic Agency privacy

3

Central vs back-of-house Safety & Wellbeing Safe accessSafety & exits& Wellbeing

3

Privacy Spatial location Safety

2

3

4

4 3

Control (C)

Personal floor area Personal floor 1,5 area Break/rest space Break/rest1,75 space Ceiling height Ceiling height 1,5 View quality View quality 1,2 Daylight access Daylight access 1,5 Window proximity Window proximity 1,2 Artificial lighting Artificial lighting 1,5 Ventilation / air quality Ventilation1,5 / air quality Thermal comfort Thermal comfort 1,5 Acoustic comfort Acoustic comfort 1,5 Furniture quality Furniture quality 1,5 Personal storage Personal storage 1,5 Food & drink facilities Food & drink 1,75facilities Privacy Privacy 1,2 Spatial location Spatial location 1,5 Safety Safety 1,75

Adequacy (A) 2

Space available for resting 0,5 Usable area 2,625 per person Perceived vertical space 0,5 Space available 1,2for resting Visual connection to outside 0,5 Perceived vertical 2,25 space Quality of natural light 0,5 Visual connection 3 to outside Distance to daylight source 0,5 Quality of natural 2,25 light Electric lighting adequacy 0,5 Distance to daylight 2,25 source Fresh air control 0,5 Electric lighting 2,625 adequacy Temperature comfort 0,5 Fresh air control 0,75 Noise and sound control 0,5 Temperature0,875 comfort Ergonomics & comfort 0,5 Noise and sound 2,625control Space for belongings 0,5 Ergonomics &1,5 comfort Access to food/water 0,5 Space for belongings 0,875 Visual/acoustic privacy 0,5 Access to food/water 2,25 Central vs back-of-house 0,5 Visual/acoustic 1,5 privacy Safe access & exits 0,5 Central vs back-of-house 1,5 Hygiene & maintenance 0,75 Safe access 3,9375 & exits

floor is a good space. Bad smell of sewer Overal the ground floor is a good space. Bad smell of sewer 2,0 Average from gutter or so.

ility Manager

No comments.

Adequacy (A) Exposure (E)

Gabriella I Architect

Spatial Quantity

Spatial Quantity

1,75

Score

Average

Score

1 3 3 2 2 3 3 4 3 3 3 3 2 3 1 1 1 1 3 3 2 3 4 1 2 3 2 2 3 2 2 3

Exposure (E) 1,5

Control (C) 0,5

Weighted 1,5

1 1,75 1,75 1,2 1,75 1,5 1,75 1,5 1,75 1,5 1,75 1,5 1,75 1,75 1,75 1,5 1,75 1,75 1,75 1,75 1,2 1 1,5 1,75 1,5 1,5 1,75 1,5 1,5 1,5 1,75 1,75

0,5 0,5 0,5 0,5 0,75 0,5 1 0,5 1 0,5 1 0,5 0,75 0,5 0,75 0,5 0,75 0,5 1 0,5 0,75 0,5 0,75 0,5 0,75 0,5 0,5 0,5 0,5 0,5 0,75 0,75

0,5 2,625 2,625 1,2 2,625 2,25 5,25 3 5,25 2,25 5,25 2,25 2,625 2,625 1,3125 0,75 1,3125 0,875 5,25 2,625 1,8 1,5 4,5 0,875 2,25 2,25 1,75 1,5 2,25 1,5 2,625 3,9375 2,625 48,675

39 3

27,45 1,75

12,5 0,5

43

26,45

8,75

Weighted

Usable area per person 0,75 Usable area per 2,25person Space available for resting 0,75 Space available 2,625 for resting Perceived vertical space 0,5 Perceived vertical 2,25 space Visual connection to outside 0,5 Visual connection 1,2 to outside Quality of natural light 0,5 Quality of natural 2,25 light Distance to daylight source 0,5 Distance to daylight 1,2 source Electric lighting adequacy 0,5 Electric lighting 2,25 adequacy Fresh air control 0,75 Fresh air control 4,5 Temperature comfort 0,75 Temperature3,375 comfort Noise and sound control 0,75 Noise and sound 4,5 control Ergonomics & comfort 0,75 Ergonomics &4,5 comfort Space for belongings 0,5 Space for belongings 3 Access to food/water 0,5 Access to food/water 2,625 Visual/acoustic privacy 0,5 Visual/acoustic 2,4 privacy Central vs back-of-house 0,5 Central vs back-of-house 2,25 Safe access & exits 1Safe access &5,25 exits

2,9

34,6375

2,0

Average

Adequacy (A) Adequacy (A)

Exposure (E) Exposure (E)

Control (C) Control (C)

Weighted Weighted

3 2 2 2 3 3 4 2 3 3 3 2 3 3 1 4 1 3 3 4 3 4 1 4 3 3 2 4 2 3 3 3

1,75 1,5 1,2 1,75 1,5 1,5 1,5 1,2 1,5 1,5 1,5 1,2 1,75 1,5 1,5 1,5 1,75 1,5 1,75 1,5 1 1,5 1,75 1,5 1,5 1,75 1,5 1,2 1,5 1,5 1,75 1,75

0,5 0,75 0,5 0,75 0,5 0,5 0,5 0,5 0,5 0,5 0,5 0,5 0,5 0,5 0,5 0,75 0,5 0,75 0,5 0,75 0,5 0,75 0,5 0,5 0,5 0,5 0,5 0,5 0,5 0,5 0,75 1

2,625 2,25 1,2 2,625 2,25 2,25 3 1,2 2,25 2,25 2,25 1,2 2,625 2,25 0,75 4,5 0,875 3,375 2,625 4,5 1,5 4,5 0,875 3 2,25 2,625 1,5 2,4 1,5 2,25 3,9375 5,25

2

1,75

2

1,2

4

1,75

1

1

1

1

1

1

4

1,75

2

1,2

3

1,5

3

1,5

3

1,5

0,5

1

4

1,75

0,5

1

3

1,5

3

1,5

3

1,5

40

23,4

No comments.

Daylight & View

112

SPATIAL DIGNITY

Environmental Quality

Amenities & Comfort

Agency Safety & Wellbeing

Ceiling height

Perceived vertical space

3

1,75

0,5

2,625

4

1,75

0,75

View quality

Visual connection to outside

2

1,75

0,75

2,625

1

1

0,5

Daylight access

Quality of natural light

3

1,75

1

5,25

1

1

0,5

Window proximity

Distance to daylight source

3

1,75

1

5,25

1

1

0,5

Artificial lighting

Electric lighting adequacy

3

1,75

1

5,25

4

1,75

0,5

Ventilation / air quality

Fresh air control

2

1,75

0,75

2,625

2

1,2

0,5

Thermal comfort

Temperature comfort

1

1,75

0,75

1,3125

3

1,5

0,5

Acoustic comfort

Noise and sound control

1

1,75

0,75

1,3125

3

1,5

0,5

Furniture quality

Ergonomics & comfort

3

1,75

1

5,25

3

1,5

0,75

Personal storage

Space for belongings

2

1,2

0,75

1,8

0,5

1

0,75

Food & drink facilities

Access to food/water

4

1,5

0,75

4,5

4

1,75

1

Privacy

Visual/acoustic privacy

2

1,5

0,75

2,25

0,5

1

0,5

Spatial location

Central vs back-of-house

2

1,75

0,5

1,75

3

1,5

1

Safety

Safe access & exits

3

1,5

0,5

2,25

3

1,5

1

Cleanliness

Hygiene & maintenance

2

1,75

0,75

2,625

3

1,5

1

39

27,45

12,5

40

23,4

11,7

Score

Oz I Front of House Officer Spatial Quantity

Daylight & View

Environmental Quality

Amenities & Comfort

Agency Safety & Wellbeing

Environmental Quality

Amenities & Comfort

Agency Safety & Wellbeing

Exposure (E)

Control (C)

Weighted 2,625

Usable area per person

3

1,75

0,5

Space available for resting

2

1,2

0,5

1,2

Ceiling height

Perceived vertical space

3

1,5

0,5

2,25

View quality

Visual connection to outside

4

1,5

0,5

3

Daylight access

Quality of natural light

3

1,5

0,5

2,25

Window proximity

Distance to daylight source

3

1,5

0,5

2,25

Artificial lighting

Electric lighting adequacy

3

1,75

0,5

2,625

Ventilation / air quality

Fresh air control

1

1,5

0,5

0,75

Thermal comfort

Temperature comfort

1

1,75

0,5

0,875

Acoustic comfort

Noise and sound control

3

1,75

0,5

2,625

Furniture quality

Ergonomics & comfort

3

1

0,5

1,5

Personal storage

Space for belongings

1

1,75

0,5

0,875

Food & drink facilities

Access to food/water

3

1,5

0,5

2,25

Privacy

Visual/acoustic privacy

2

1,5

0,5

1,5

Spatial location

Central vs back-of-house

2

1,5

0,5

1,5

Safety

Safe access & exits

3

1,75

0,75

3,9375

Cleanliness

Hygiene & maintenance

2,625

Score

3

1,75

0,5

43

26,45

8,75 34,6375

2,0

Average

Adequacy (A)

Exposure (E)

Control (C)

Weighted

Personal floor area

Usable area per person

2

1,5

0,75

2,25

Break/rest space

Space available for resting

2

1,75

0,75

2,625

Ceiling height

Perceived vertical space

3

1,5

0,5

2,25

View quality

Visual connection to outside

2

1,2

0,5

1,2

Daylight access

Quality of natural light

3

1,5

0,5

2,25

Window proximity

Distance to daylight source

2

1,2

0,5

1,2

Artificial lighting

Electric lighting adequacy

3

1,5

0,5

2,25

Ventilation / air quality

Fresh air control

4

1,5

0,75

4,5

Thermal comfort

Temperature comfort

3

1,5

0,75

3,375

Acoustic comfort

Noise and sound control

4

1,5

0,75

4,5

Furniture quality

Ergonomics & comfort

4

1,5

0,75

4,5

Personal storage

Space for belongings

4

1,5

0,5

3

Food & drink facilities

Access to food/water

3

1,75

0,5

2,625

Privacy

Visual/acoustic privacy

4

1,2

0,5

2,4

Spatial location

Central vs back-of-house

3

1,5

0,5

2,25

Safety

Safe access & exits

3

1,75

1

5,25

Cleanliness

Hygiene & maintenance

3

1,75

1

52

25,6

11

5,25

Score

No comments.

Adequacy (A)

Break/rest space

Martha I Sustainability Manager

Daylight & View

2,9

Personal floor area

Overal the ground floor is a good space. Bad smell of sewer from gutter or so.

Spatial Quantity

48,675

Average

No comments.

51,675

3,0

Average

1

No comments.

113

Eliz Helpdesk Spatial Quantity

Daylight & View

Environmental Quality

Amenities & Comfort

Agency Safety & Wellbeing

Environmental Quality

Amenities & Comfort

Agency Safety & Wellbeing

Control (C)

Weighted

Usable area per person

2

1,5

0,75

2,25

Break/rest space

Space available for resting

1

1

0,5

0,5

Ceiling height

Perceived vertical space

4

1,5

0,5

3

View quality

Visual connection to outside

3

1

0,5

1,5

Daylight access

Quality of natural light

0,5

1

0,5

0,25

Window proximity

Distance to daylight source

0,5

1

0,5

0,25

Artificial lighting

Electric lighting adequacy

3

1

0,75

2,25

Ventilation / air quality

Fresh air control

2

1,5

0,75

2,25

Thermal comfort

Temperature comfort

2

1,5

0,75

2,25

Acoustic comfort

Noise and sound control

3

1,5

0,75

3,375

Furniture quality

Ergonomics & comfort

1

1,5

0,75

1,125

Personal storage

Space for belongings

1

1

0,5

0,5

Food & drink facilities

Access to food/water

3

1,5

0,75

3,375

Privacy

Visual/acoustic privacy

1

1

1

1

Spatial location

Central vs back-of-house

3

1,2

0,75

2,7

Safety

Safe access & exits

3

1,75

1

5,25

Cleanliness

Hygiene & maintenance

2

1,5

0,75

35

21,95

11,75

2,25

Score

34,075

2,0

Average

F Receptionist

Daylight & View

Exposure (E)

Personal floor area

No comments.

Spatial Quantity

Adequacy (A)

Adequacy (A)

Exposure (E)

Control (C)

Weighted

Personal floor area

Usable area per person

3

1,75

0,75

3,9375

Break/rest space

Space available for resting

1

1,2

0,5

0,6

Ceiling height

Perceived vertical space

4

1,75

0,5

3,5

View quality

Visual connection to outside

4

1,75

0,5

3,5

Daylight access

Quality of natural light

4

1,75

0,5

3,5

Window proximity

Distance to daylight source

4

1,75

0,5

3,5

Artificial lighting

Electric lighting adequacy

4

1,75

0,5

3,5

Ventilation / air quality

Fresh air control

3

1,75

0,75

3,9375

Thermal comfort

Temperature comfort

2

1,75

0,5

1,75

Acoustic comfort

Noise and sound control

3

1,75

0,5

2,625

Furniture quality

Ergonomics & comfort

3

1,75

0,5

2,625

Personal storage

Space for belongings

2

1,2

0,5

1,2

Food & drink facilities

Access to food/water

2

1,2

0,5

1,2

Privacy

Visual/acoustic privacy

3

1,5

0,5

2,25

Spatial location

Central vs back-of-house

3

1,5

0,5

2,25

Safety

Safe access & exits

4

1,2

0,75

3,6

Cleanliness

Hygiene & maintenance

4

1,5

0,75

53

26,8

9,5

4,5

Score Average

47,975

2,8

The break space is small compared to the amount of staff, in the basement with no window, doesn't make me want to have my lunch break there so I usually just heat up my food and eat in a different area. Taps to refill water bottles are also located in the basement.

Reception area is spacious with big windows which is nice. However the temperature in the winter is quite cold, almost like being outside some days. Heaters are located on the floor by the windows and doors so it never comes to the reception.

114

SPATIAL DIGNITY

OFFICE TOWER

-1 BASEMENT -2 BASEMENT

location dedicated space for caretakers

115

40 LEADENHALL

CARETAKERS’ ROOMS

LEVEL: BASEMENT -1

Architect: Make Architects Location: London, UK Date: 2024 Area: ~84,500 m²

The caretakers’ and staff rooms are located in the basement floor.

Total building area

Spatial indicator

A large-scale office/commercial development in the City of London’s insurance district consisting of two towers (rising 14 and 34 stories respectively) built over a shared multi-story podium. The architecture features a stepped profile arranged in vertical slices that cascade downward to protect views of St. Paul’s Cathedral. The complex incorporates outdoor green roof terraces, an auditorium, a central pocket square, public restaurants, and the Grade II listed 19-21 Billiter Street heritage building.

Spatial allocation for caretakers 0,30%

116

SPATIAL DIGNITY

SPATIAL QUALITY COMPARISON This matrix moves beyond quantity (m² per person) to assess quality of space.

It reveals that the spatial disparity is not just numerical but experiential. Office workers occupy daylit spaces on floors 1-33 with natural ventilation, dedicated desks, and access to amenities. Mobile caretakers have no special personal workspace despite maintaining all floors.

All caretakers share 350 m² of basement facilities without daylight for essential welfare functions (changing, breaks, storage). This comparison tries to expose how architectural design spatially dignifies some workers while marginalising others, even when both occupy the same building.

More about the case study can be found in “An inventory of the undervalued”.

117

Spatial quality comparison Quality Metric

Office Workers

Visible catetaker (reception, security…)

Mobile caretaker (Cleaners, Engineers…)

Caretaker welfare facilities

m² per person

33,96 m²/person

1,39 m²/person

1,39 m²/person

1,39 m²/person

Daylight access

YES

YES

In other’s spaces only

NO (basement)

Dedicated Desk

Shared station

NONE

Share Facilities

Floor 1-33

Ground Floor

All floors (moving)

Basement

Break Facilities

Premium spaces / 6500 m² amenities

Basement only

Basement only

Basement only

Storage/ Lockers

At desk/changing rooms basement

Basement only

Basement only

Basement only

Personal workspace Floor level

118

SPATIAL DIGNITY

Breakrooms in buildings

119

Breakrooms in buildings

120

SPATIAL DIGNITY

When examining the regulations and laws that govern the spaces allocated to building caretakers, gaps can be found within them which affects the conditions.

The legal framework is a patchwork of building codes, occupational health regulations, and voluntary certification standards, each governing a different aspect of what a workplace must provide and for whom. The regulations analysed cover primarily the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

In the Netherlands, the UK, and most of the EU, regulations make a key distinction between primary workspaces and ancillary spaces.

Facilities management spaces typically fall into the second category due to the duration of occupation.

More about law and regulation can be found in “An inventory of the undervalued”.

121

REGULATORY FRAMEWORK FOR A BREAK ROOM NETHERLANDS

UNITED KINGDOM

LEGAL INSTRUMENT

Arbobesluit (Working Conditions Decree)

Workplace (Health, Safety & Welfare) Regs 1992

IS A BREAKROOM MANDATORY?

Yes when >10 workers or health/safety warrants it

Yes suitable rest facilities require

MINIMUM SPACE

1.25 m² per person (guideline, not fixed law)

11 m³ per person (ACoP benchmark)

DAYLIGHT

As far as reasonably possible (voor zover mogelijk)

As far as reasonably practicable

LIGHTING

Min. 200 lux, preferred 400 lux

Suitable and sufficient (no fixed lux value)

2.12 l/s/person (existing) 4 l/s/person (new build)

Suitable and sufficient (no fixed numeric value)

Employer (Arbobesluit)

Employer (WHS Regs 1992)

VENTILATION RESPONSIBLE PARTY

122

SPATIAL DIGNITY

REGULATORY FRAMEWORK Governs the physical building.

Owner’s responsibility. Classifies every space by use type, determining what standards apply.

Building regulations Bbl (NL) · Building Regs (UK)

Primary legislation

EU Framework Directive

Wellbeing clause

Arbowet (NL) · H&S at Work Act 1974 (UK)

89/391/EEC - shared European root

Sets minimum health & safety obligations across all EU member states. NL and UK national laws both derive from this directive.

Arbowet Art. 3 - rarely enforced

High-level national law. Defines the general duty of care. Sets the principle that employers are responsible for worker health & safety.

work must be organised in a way that promotes employee well-being. This clause rarely gets enforced in practice, but it exists as a legal opening for challenging inadequate conditions.

Working conditions law

Arbobesluit (NL) · WHS Regs 1992 (UK) Governs how people are treated inside the building. Employer’s responsibility.

Sets specific rules: daylight, space, break rooms, ventilation

Advisory: NEN 1824 is a private-law document. Applying it is not mandatory unless parties have agreed to do so.

However, a court can still hold accountable for not applying its requirements if the matter comes to civil litigation 1

PO / VO: Primair Onderwijs / Voortgezet Onderwijs, meaning Primary Education / Secondary Education in Dutch. These are the two sector-specific Arbocatalogi that cover school caretakers.

2

RAS: Reinigings- en Aanverwante Servicebedrijven, the cleaning and facility services sector. That is the catalogue that defines the starting room requirements for cleaners.

3

123

Every space is assigned a use type. This determines whether full daylight & ventilation standards apply or not.

Primary

Verblijfsruimte Full reqs.

Ancillary

Space classification

Functiegebied Weak reqs.

Primary vs. ancillary spaces

Unnamed

Onbenoemderuimte No reqs.

OTHERS ADVISORY

GAPS & THRESHOLDS

NEN 1824

Ergonomic space norms (NL) Advisory1 Not legally binding unless agreed contractually. But a court can still hold parties to it in civil litigation.

RI&E risk assessment

Employer-led hazard evaluation (NL) Employers must assess real risks including cramped space, ergonomic strain, and restricted movement.Determines what conditions are actually needed for the specific work.

Responsibility split

Bbl -> building owner · Arbobesluit -> employer labor contractor -> third party gap In most large buildings, responsibility is split between at least three different parties: the building owner, the facilities management company, and the contracted service providers. The Bbl falls on the owner. The Arbobesluit falls on the employer, which for a caretaker is often the contractor, not the owner.

Caretaker welfare falls through the gap between them.

Legal threshold

REGULATION BY DESIGN Architecture as regulation

built environment as extralegal regulation The building itself enforces hierarchy by its design aspects without any written rule.

For example, Robert Moses’s bridges on Long Island, New York. He allegedly designed the overpasses on parkways leading to Jones Beach so low that public buses could not pass under them, effectively preventing poor and Black New Yorkers, who relied on public transport, from reaching the beach.

If a worker spends >2h/day -> primary workplace If a worker spends more than two hours a day in a space, that space legally becomes a workplace, and working conditions requirements apply, even if building regulations classified that room as storage and assigned no requirements to it.

Education PO/VO2

Sector-specific rules

Arbocatalogi (NL) Industry agreements on how law is met

Cleaning RAS3

Healthcare UMC

Municipalities

A&O Fonds Gemeenten

...

124

SPATIAL DIGNITY

2M2 PERFOMANCE

125

The 2m2 performance is a series of short films portraying a square of 1.4m by 1.4m. The 2m² area is a speculative representation of the dedicated space for a caretaker in a building. This number derives from the analysis of an office tower and tries to represent the smallness of the space often available for caretakers of a building. Information about these spaces is highly unavailable or not accessible.

Access to and pictures of spaces such as break rooms or changing rooms are not public and even hidden. As soon as I started looking into the topic, I started to notice more and more certain professions, so the following quote is very true to the research: as John W. Budd argues in “The Eye Sees What the Mind Knows: The Conceptual Foundations of Invisible Work,” one must train “the mind to think more broadly about the forms that work takes in order to enable the eye to see it.”

The 2m² area is delimited. The performances translate different acts of care and maintenance such as vacuuming, mopping, painting, MEP installation checking, as well as simple daily acts like eating lunch or drinking. Simple tools necessary for these works are showcased in the restricted space. The subject is

wearing a suit, more like a corporate suit, which contrasts and tries to point out the uniform that certain employees need to wear and makes them identifiable to a certain profession. Other references such as the way the camera is pointing at the subject reference a security camera monitoring the employees daily. This work is a reconstruction of the hidden works that are happening in order to maintain architecture and the very space dedicated to the people who do.

126

SPATIAL DIGNITY

127

128

SPATIAL DIGNITY

129

130

SPATIAL DIGNITY

131

132

SPATIAL DIGNITY

133

134

SPATIAL DIGNITY

135

136

SPATIAL DIGNITY

137

138

139

MANIFESTO FOR A BREAK ROOM

140

MANIFESTO FOR A BREAK ROOM

A break room is formally defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as “a room in a workplace that has machines for buying drinks and snacks and tables and chairs where employees can eat, drink, and relax.” However, in occupational health and sociological contexts, its definition expands beyond a literal physical location; researchers Peteri, Lempiäinen, and Kinnunen (2024) conceptualise the break room as a complex “spatial and material order for interaction” and a neutral social territory where workplace hierarchies are temporarily suspended.

Ultimately, whether viewed as a simple utility space or a critical organisational tool, it functions as an essential “employee support space” intended to facilitate physical rest, unfiltered peer connection, and psychological recovery away from daily job demands (Fisher, n.d.).

141

MANIFESTO FOR A BREAK ROOM 1. NATURAL DAYLIGHT IS A MINIMUM REQUIREMENT

No one should be relegated to windowless basement levels as the building’s workforce maintenance people. Whether they work in an MEP plant room or in a deep corridor, they should take rest in the light. The break room must be placed to take the maximum possible amount of daylight and have a view to the horizon.

2. SEPARATE THE “JOB” FROM THE “HUMAN”

Labour and rest must be architecturally separated. The break room is not a storage space. It is forbidden to place uniform lockers, heavy equipment, or cleaning chemicals within the space of rest.

3. DESIGN ACCORDING TO SHIFTS

Caretakers operate according to rigid, synchronised, and overlapping time schedules. Building a break room with the assumption that 25% is the average utilisation rate sets up a systemic bottleneck which will force workers out into hallways and stairwells, or out of the building into the weather. Taking or not taking a break should be the worker’s choice, not a forced occupation.

The break room must be calculated with the 75-100% Shift-Collision Peak.

4. DESIGN FOR PHYSICAL STRAIN

Break implies recovery from specific physical stress. The architecture must actively counter physical impacts of labour.

The layout must create specific zones for: - A physical recovery zone - A seating zone - A social eating zone

5. PLAN FOR GROWTH

The operational staff workforce of a building does evolve. New roles such as ‘sustainability officer’, ‘EV charging coordinator’ or ‘digital twin operator’ may emerge.

These did not exist 10 years ago and are now essential for some typologies of building.

The break room is built to be able to grow.

6. ASK THE PEOPLE WHO USE IT

Before you close a resting/welfare space, ask the people who are using it. Ask them every year. Ask them when there is a change.

A break room is never finished, and is always in response to the people in it.

7. A MINIMUM OF 20M².

For buildings with fewer than 25 operational staff, a purely quantitative approach should not dictate sizes. A breakroom needs to provide the minimum programme, regardless of its number of occupants: space to rest, space to eat, space to recover from physical impacts. All three of those three factors constitute a minimum 20 m² space.

142

143

THE ELEVEN SPECULATIONS

144

WORKS OF CARE The eleven architectural speculations are a gesture toward the people who arrive before the building wakes, who move through its spaces in the hours that belong to no one else, and who remain long after the last light has gone. They grow from the same research that produced the 2m² performance series, the speculative representation of the space dedicated to a caretaker within a building.

Each one draws its form from a category of stewardship and disciplines that sustain collective life in ways that go largely unseen. The symbolic nature of each role finds its expression through architecture, water and planting. In some cases, the shape is drawn from the repetitive movements of the work itself (mopping across a floor, the routing of a pipe, lines of an organised system…). The geometries are borrowed from a rhythm of work. Planting grows into the spaces and changes with the months, and water is a literal symbol of the MEP disciplines. The boundaries between the made and the grown are left deliberately loose, because the work these pavilions honour has always understood that a building is never truly separate from the world outside it. The architecture of the pavilions is itself an act of care. Curves soften the experience of moving through and around each form. The sheltered spaces offer protection without enclosure. The scale is never imposing, and nothing here demands a particular behaviour or a direction of movement.

Their presence is not an intrusive act; they open to whoever arrives and whatever they need from the space.

The eleven architectural speculations reverse the order in which architecture defines the disciplines that occupy it. Each one starts from a single caretaking discipline and lets that discipline produce the architecture.

They are pure architectural speculation and are positioned in a very specific location within a speculative model of the city, which itself represents the wider system of the building world. Their location carries parts of the story and testimonies collected. They exist as a speculation inside a speculation.

145

They do not have precise material or function but rather stand as objects. Removing function removes the excuse of efficiency, of value engineering, of a minimum standard.

Each speculation is maintained by its associated caretaker. If the caretaker is not here, the speculation enters its phase of degradation and ageing related to its discipline. The abandoned space is a reflection towards the unvalued position of the caretaker in a building. If caretakers are not here, the functioning of the architecture is compromised.

Are we able to accept it?

The architectural speculations propose no fixed solution but give visible form to a problem that has remained invisible and unspoken in the building world, the discipline with no architecture of its own. They are an act of care toward building caretakers. It is also an act of representation and of criticism, directed at the architecture and space the building world has dedicated to them.

146

SUSTAINABILITY & ENVIRONMENT

13 000

147

13 000

SUSTAINABILITY & ENVIRONMENT ARCHITECTURAL PLAN

148

SUSTAINABILITY & ENVIRONMENT

149

150

HEALTH, SAFETY & COMPLIANCE

16 000

151

20 000

HEALTH & SAFETY COMPLIANCE ARCHITECTURAL PLAN

152

HEALTH, SAFETY & COMPLIANCE

153

154

MEP (MECHANICAL, ELECTRICAL & PLUMBING)

30 000

155

16000

MEP ARCHITECTURAL PLAN

156

MEP

157

158

SECURITY & ACCESS

9 400

159

700

SECURITY & ACCESS ARCHITECTURAL PLAN

160

SAFETY & ACCESS

161

162

FRONT OF HOUSE & GUEST SERVICES

16 800

163

16 800

FRONT OF HOUSE & GUEST SERVICES ARCHITECTURAL PLAN

164

FRONT OF HOUSE & GUEST SERVICE

165

166

FACILITIES MANAGEMENT & ADMIN

16 000

167

1900

1900

16 000

FACILITY MANAGEMENT ARCHITECTURAL PLAN

168

FACILITY MANAGEMENT & ADMIN

169

170

CLEANING & HYGIENE

2700

5400

5400

3200

171

3550

7000

CLEANING & HYGIENE ARCHITECTURAL PLAN

5600

172

CLEANING & HYGIENE

173

174

GENERAL MAINTENANCE FABRIC

7300

14 600

7300

175

7300

7300 14 600

GENERAL MAINTENANCE FABRIC ARCHITECTURAL PLAN

176

GENERAL MAINTENANCE FABRIC

177

178

SMART BUILDING & TECHNOLOGY

10 000

179

11 200

SMART BUILDING & TECHNOLOGY ARCHITECTURAL PLAN

180

SMART BUILDING & TECHNOLOGY

181

182

CATERING & HOSPITALITY

12 800

183

16 000

CATERING & HOSPITALITY ARCHITECTURAL PLAN

184

CATERING & HOSPITALITY

185

186

SPECIALIST & EMERGING ROLES

187

5200 5.200

5200 5.200

5200 5.200

5200 5.200

5200 5.200

8.500 8500

SPECIALIST & EMERGING ROLES ARCHITECTURAL PLAN

188

SPECIALISTS & EMERGING ROLES

189

190

191

THE CITY AS SYSTEM

192

193

194

195

196

197

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This project would not have taken the shape it did without the guidance of my mentor and my committee members, Valentina, Laura and Giulio.

To my parents, thank you for your unconditional support throughout this journey and every one before it. To my brother Guillaume and my family, thank you for the encouragement and patience over the years it took to get here.

To Candice, my best friend, thank you for being there through every stage of this graduation and every stage before it.

To my childhood friends, and to all the friends I met along the way of this journey, thank you for the conversations, the distractions, and the support that kept me grounded.

To Pierluigi, with the highs, the low lows, and everything between, until this finally came to be.

To my flatmates, thank you for living alongside this project as much as I did, and for making the process lighter.

To my colleagues at work, thank you for your flexibility and understanding while I balanced this project alongside everything else.

This graduation is the result of all of it.

198

BIBLIOGRAPHY

199

BOOKS Mattern, Shannon. Maintenance and Care: A Working Guide to the Repair of Rust, Dust, Cracks, and Corrupted Code in Our Cities, Our Homes, and Our Social Relations. Princeton Architectural Press, 2018.

Sample, Hilary. Maintenance Architecture. MIT Press, 2016.

Brand, Stewart. Maintenance: Of Everything, Part One. Stripe Matter Inc, 2025.

Giedion, Sigfried. Befreites Wohnen (Living Liberated). Orell Füssli, 1929.

Crain, Marion G., Poster, Winifred R., and Cherry, Miriam A. (eds.). Invisible Labor: Hidden Work in the Contemporary World. University of California Press, 2016.

Weismann, Leslie Kanes. Discrimination by Design: A Feminist Critique of the Man-Made Environment. University of Illinois Press, 1992.

Thaler, Richard H. and Sunstein, Cass R. Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness. Yale University Press, 2008.

ACADEMIC ARTICLES Kaiser, Alma. “In-House, yet ‘Standing Somewhere off’: Spatial Reflections on the Enduring Marginality of Cleaning Staff in High-Ranking London Universities.” Work, Employment and Society, 2022.

Schindler, Sarah. “Architectural Exclusion: Discrimination and Segregation Through Physical Design of the Built Environment.” Yale Law Journal, vol. 124, no. 6, 2015, pp. 1934–2024.

Wingfield, Adia Harvey and Skeete, Renée. “Maintaining Hierarchies.” In Crain, Poster, and Cherry (eds.), Invisible Labor: Hidden Work in the Contemporary World. University of California Press, 2016.

Henke, Christopher. “The Mechanics of Workplace Order: Toward a Sociology of Repair.” Berkeley Journal of Sociology, vol. 44, 1999–2000.

Graham, Stephen and Thrift, Nigel. “Out of Order: Understanding Repair and Maintenance.” Theory, Culture & Society, vol. 24, no. 3, 2007, pp. 1–25.

Tronto, Joan C. and Fisher, Berenice. “Toward a Feminist Theory of Caring.” In Abel, Emily K. and Nelson, Margaret K. (eds.), Circles of Care. State University of New York Press, 1990.

Knowles, Scott Gabriel. “Slow Disaster: Deferred Maintenance and the Production of Urban Crisis.” Journal of Urban History, 2020.

Budd, John W. “The Eye Sees What the Mind Knows: The Conceptual Foundations of Invisible Work.”

Peteri, Virve, Lempiäinen, Kirsi, and Kinnunen, Taina. Conceptualisation of the break room as a spatial and material order for interaction. 2024.

Fisher, Berenice. On the break room as an employee support space. n.d.

MANIFESTOS & PRIMARY TEXTS Ukeles, Mierle Laderman. Manifesto for Maintenance Art. 1969.

Marx, Karl. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, vol. 1. 1867.

FILMS & MOVING IMAGE Bêka, Ila and Lemoine, Louise. Koolhaas Houselife. Bêka & Partners, 2008.

Manglano-Ovalle, Iñigo. Le Baiser / The Kiss. 1999.

Bernatchez, Patrick. I Feel Cold Today. 2007.

ARTWORKS & PERFORMANCES Matta-Clark, Gordon. Conical Intersect. Paris, 1975.

Wall, Jeff. Morning Cleaning, Mies van der Rohe Foundation, Barcelona. 1999. Transparency in lightbox.

200

Koelewijn, Joe. Het Schoonmaken van het Rietveld Paviljoen. 1992.

Otero-Pailos, Jorge. Ethic of Dust. 2009.

Rotor. Usus/Usures. 2010.

O’Brien, Kelly. No Rest for the Wicked. 2004–present.

Ortiz, Daniela. Habitaciones de Servicio / Maids Room.

Parks, Gordon. American Gothic, Washington, D.C. 1942. Photograph. Library of Congress.

ONLINE ARTICLES & MEDIA Lupu, Alina. The recleaning of the Rietveld pavilion. 2017.

Saad, Basyma. “The 5m² Maid’s Room: Lebanon’s Racist, Gendered Architecture.” Failed Architecture.

Anderson, Emily Hodgson. “Invisible Labor, Invisible Hands.” Los Angeles Review of Books, 16 April 2022.

“Custodians Ensure Our Well-Being. It’s Time We Ensure Theirs.” Yes Magazine, 12 January 2022.

Kolhatkar, Sonali, Taganna Romano, Evalynn Fae, and Luong, Michael. The Dignity of Custodians. 2022.

“Black Labor After the Siege on Capitol Hill.” Art in America, 2021.

“U of M Research Offers Rare Look at the Lives of Janitors.” MinnPost, December 2019.

University of Washington. Custodians Share Covid Experiences, Show Pride in Their Work in Art Exhibit. 2022.

Garcia, Francis. A Day in the Life of a UW Custodian. University of Washington Facilities Services, 2024.

Ayoub, M., & Public Works Studio. Public Works Lebanon highlights windowless “maid’s rooms” in Beirut. Dezeen, 27 November 2019.

Baldwin, E. From the maid’s room to the outskirts: How does architecture respond to the social changes of domestic work? ArchDaily, 14 May 2022.

Kanafani, S., & Public Works Studio. The 5m² maid’s room: Lebanon’s racist, gendered architecture. Failed Architecture, 22 September 2021.

Minassian, N. (Director). The hidden room [Short documentary]. Liwa.tv, 2021.

Vargas, S. Maids’ rooms, habitaciones de servicio, Casa La Encantada [Artwork collection profile]. KADIST, 2021.

Bored Panda. 40 of the worst work break rooms ever shared by people who deserve better. Bored Panda, n.d. r/LiminalSpace. Our break room at work (Community Mental Health) [Online forum post]. Reddit, 11 November 2020. r/LiminalSpace. The breakrooms [Online forum post]. Reddit, 5 March 2021. r/LiminalSpace. Right justified break room [Online forum post]. Reddit, 18 April 2024.

Wikipedia contributors. Break room. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 15 May 2024.

Cambridge Dictionary. Definition of “break room.”

INTERVIEWS Sustainability Manager, office tower, London. Telephone interview conducted 2025/2026.

Kaiser, Alma. Researcher, Cultural Organizer and Coordinator. Telephone interview. April 2026.

LEGAL & REGULATORY DOCUMENTS Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992. UK Statutory Instruments 1992 No. 3004.

Health and Safety Executive (HSE). “Frequently Asked Questions: Room Space.”

Arbobesluit. Besluit van 15 januari 1997, Stb. 1997, 60. Netherlands.

NEN 1824. Ergonomie — Vereiste ruimte voor het werken. Nederlands Normalisatie-instituut.

Lebanese Construction Law. Republic of Lebanon.

INSTITUTIONAL, CERTIFICATION & SECTOR SOURCES Association of Facilities Managers. Operational Frameworks and Facility Guidelines. AFM Registry, London, UK, 2026.

201

Arboportaal. Arbeidsomstandigheden en Praktische Richtlijnen voor de Werkplek. Ministerie van Sociale Zaken en Werkgelegenheid, The Hague, Netherlands, 2026.

British Hospitality Association. Workforce Guidance and Hospitality Operations Standard. BHA Archives, London, UK, 2026.

Building Engineering Services Association. BESA Technical Specifications for Building Engineering Services. BESA Publications, London, UK, 2026.

Building Research Establishment. BREEAM Technical Standards and Assessor Guidance Manual. BRE Global, Watford, UK, 2026.

Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek. Arbeidsmarkt, Werktijden en Werkgelegenheid Statistieken. CBS, Heerlen/Den Haag, Netherlands, 2026.

Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure. Physical Security and Infrastructure Protection Criteria. CPNI Protective Security Archives, London, UK, 2026.

Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers. CIBSE Guide M: Maintenance Engineering and Management.

CIBSE, London, UK, 2026.

CoreNet Global. Corporate Real Estate and Workplace Research Syntheses. CoreNet Global Knowledge Center, Atlanta, USA, 2026.

Eurofound. European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS): Sector-by-Sector Shift Pattern Analysis. European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, Dublin, Ireland, 2026.

Federatie Nederlandse Vakbeweging. Collectieve Arbeidsovereenkomsten (CAO) voor Schoonmaak-, Beveiligings- en Cateringpersoneel. FNV, Utrecht, Netherlands, 2026.

Foodservice Consultants Society International. FCSI Professional Standard Design and Consulting Guidelines. FCSI Global, Architectural Press, 2026.

Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark. GRESB Real Estate Assessment Standard. GRESB BV, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2026.

Institute of Workplace and Facilities Management. IWFM Professional Standards, Role Definitions, and Workforce Surveys. IWFM, Bishop’s Stortford, UK, 2026.

International Labour Organization. Working Time Databases, Shift Patterns, and Sectoral Labour Reports. ILO Information System, Geneva, Switzerland, 2026.

Nationaal Instituut voor Budgetvoorlichting. Nibud Budgethandboek: Financiële Normen en Huishoudelijke Referenties.

Nibud, Utrecht, Netherlands, 2026.

Rijksdienst voor Ondernemend Nederland. Duurzaamheid, Energieprestatie (BENG) en Milieuregelgeving voor Gebouwen. RVO, Utrecht, Netherlands, 2026.

Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. RICS Professional Guidance Notes: Facilities Management Global Practice.

RICS Parliament Square, London, UK, 2026.

SFG20. The Standard Maintenance Specification for Building Engineering Services. BESA Publications, Penrith, UK, 2026.

Sociaal-Economische Raad. Overzicht van Collectieve Arbeidsovereenkomsten en Arbeidsmarktvraagstukken. SER, The Hague, Netherlands, 2026.

Stichting CAO Bouw & Infra. Collectieve Arbeidsovereenkomst voor de Bouw & Infra. CAO-Bouw, Harderwijk, Netherlands, 2026.

Security Industry Authority. SIA Licensing Standards, Role Criteria, and Private Security Regulations. SIA, London, UK, 2026.

U.S. Green Building Council. LEED v4.1 Reference Guide for Building Design and Construction. USGBC, Washington DC, USA, 2026.

202

BUILDING & CASE STUDY SOURCES Artadi, J. Casa La Encantada III: Ficha de Registro de Obra. Artadi Arquitectos Oficina de Arquitectura, Lima, Perú, 2010.

City of London Corporation. Schedule of Certified Net Internal Areas (NIA), Amenity Spaces, and Hospitality Provisions: 22 Bishopsgate (Planning Application Ref: 15/00823/FULEIA). Department of Built Environment, London, UK, 2020.

City of London Planning Register. Delegated Approval and Handover Certification: 40 Leadenhall Commercial Complex.

City of London Department of Planning and Transportation, London, UK, 2024.

Colegio de Arquitectos del Perú (CAP). Registro de Edificaciones Residenciales: Distrito de Chorrillos. Revista El Arquitecto Peruano, (242), 45-48, 2011.

Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH). The Scalpel (52 Lime Street), London. CTBUH Height and Floor Space Database, 2020.

Grafton Architects. The Marshall Building for the LSE. Grafton Architects Project Portfolio, Dublin, Ireland, 2021.

Hawkins\Brown Architects. 22 Gordon Street: Deep Retrofit and Metric Expansion Analysis for University College London. Hawkins\Brown Case Studies, London, UK, 2016.

Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates. 52 Lime Street (The Scalpel): Core Geometric Offset and St. Paul’s Viewing Corridor Compliance Report. KPF Project Monographs, New York/London, 2019.

London School of Economics and Political Science. The Marshall Building (44 Lincoln’s Inn Fields): Post-Occupancy Evaluation and Certified Internal Floor Areas. LSE Estates Division, London, UK, 2022.

Make Architects. 40 Leadenhall Street, London, UK, 2024.

Ortiz, D. Habitaciones de servicio [Service Rooms: Architectural Analysis of Upper-Class Residential Typologies in Lima]. àngels barcelona, Barcelona, Spain, 2011.

PLP Architecture. 22 Bishopsgate: The Vertical City. PLP Architectural Press Kits & Technical Specifications, London, UK, 2021.

Rodrigo Mazuré, M. Memoria descriptiva y adjudicación del Premio Tecnoquímica 1963: Casa Chávez en Las Casuarinas.

Anales del Instituto de Arte Americano e Investigaciones Estéticas, 16, 112-115, 1963.

Universidad de Lima. Casa Chávez (Código: 1959-M-02). Catálogo de Arquitectura del Movimiento Moderno en el Perú. Facultad de Ingeniería y Arquitectura, Lima, Perú, n.d.

University College London (UCL). The Bartlett School of Architecture Building Registry & Estates Strategy 2015-2020.

UCL Estates, London, UK, 2017.

VMX Architects. Villa D&G, Muscat, Sultanate of Oman 2025.

203

MANU UMBRA