Office definition
Approved document B, Fire Safety, Volume 2 – Buildings other than dwellinghouses, includes classifications of purpose groups for which buildings or compartments of a building are intended to be used.
It defines offices as:
'Offices or premises used for the purpose of administration, clerical work (including writing, book keeping, sorting papers, filing, typing, duplicating, machine calculating, drawing and the editorial preparation of matter for publication, police and fire and rescue service work), handling money (including banking and building society work), and communications (including postal, telegraph and radio communications) or radio, television, film, audio or video recording, or performance (not open to the public) and their control.'
[edit] Related articles on Designing Buildings Wiki
- British Council for Offices.
- Criteria for the choice of a structural system to be included in office specification.
- Lifts for office buildings.
- Office space planning.
- Post Occupancy Evaluation: operational performance of a refurbished office building.
- Site office.
- Structural systems for offices.
- Types of building.
- Workplace definition.
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