How to Design an Office Building
Desks fill a building.
Culture fills a workplace.
Learn to design office buildings that companies compete to lease, efficient for owners and energising for the people inside them every single day.
Office towers will become straightforward wins for you.
- Design leasable excellence — that keeps owners profitable and tenants proud of their address
- Plan efficient floors — without producing the soulless space everyone dreads working inside
- Energise the workday — through generous light, easy movement, and views worth glancing at
- Speak developer language — and finally understand what actually drives their investment decisions
- Handle corporate briefs — with the speed and quiet assurance that wins repeat work
- Future-ready your designs — so they stay valuable whatever work decides to become next
Built by one of the most-read architecture platforms in the world.
RTF | Rethinking The Future has spent over a decade publishing the ideas, projects and voices shaping architecture — and now brings that depth to learning. Every course is researched, written and produced by the RTF team.
Workplaces shape working lives. Shape them well.
A clear path. Five steps.
Everything unlocks instantly with membership · learn at your own pace
If you see yourself here, start today.
A few hours from now, you could already see differently.
Office buildings were where my design ambition went to die in efficient floor plates. This course showed me how core placement, daylight depth and flexibility strategies are themselves design decisions with consequences. My latest office scheme is both efficient and genuinely pleasant, which I once thought was a trade-off.
Simple by design.
Watch
Short, focused video lessons — each one a single idea, clearly explained.
Apply
End every lesson with a small task that pushes your real project forward.
Transform
Watch your work develop a point of view that is unmistakably yours.
Answered simply.
Is office design still standard fare, or has hybrid work changed the type?
The fundamentals — core design, floor plates, servicing — remain, but the brief has shifted. The course teaches both the timeless planning and the new demands.
Will I understand the commercial drivers, not just the plans?
Yes. Efficiency ratios, leasing logic and flexibility are covered, because office architecture is judged by them.
Do I need any prior experience?
No. Every course starts from where you are and builds up step by step, in plain language.
Is this software training?
No — software changes yearly. The thinking you learn here lasts a career.
How does it work?
Short video lessons with a small practice task after each. Any device, your pace.
What does membership include?
One membership unlocks every course on RTF Academy — all 450+, nothing sold separately. And you stay in control: cancel anytime in one click, and you will never be charged again.
Ready to see your work change?
Your next project could be the one that feels truly yours.
- 5 Sections
- 25 Lessons
- 4 Hours
- 1. Understanding the Type5
- 2. Brief, Programme and Areas5
- 3. Planning and Circulation5
- 4. Codes, Comfort and Systems5
- 5. Getting It Built and Judged5
- 5.1Structure and materials for an office building
- 5.2Cost drivers and value-engineering traps
- 5.3Operations: how an office building works on day 3,000
- 5.4Case studies: Commerzbank Tower by Foster + Partners, Centraal Beheer by Herman Hertzberger and The Edge Amsterdam by PLP
- 5.5The design checklist for an office building
Reviews
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Office buildings were where my design ambition went to die in efficient floor plates. This course showed me how core placement, daylight depth and flexibility strategies are themselves design decisions with consequences. My latest office scheme is both efficient and genuinely pleasant, which I once thought was a trade-off.
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