The Challenge
The rise of remote work has led to a structural decrease in office occupancy in many buildings. At the same time, peak moments now occur on popular office days like Tuesday and Thursday. In a flexible workplace concept, this can lead to overcrowding, noise, and employee frustration. To better understand the real occupancy rate of its headquarters, the Province of Antwerp enlisted brainmove to map it out.
The Province House is an iconic and modern building on Koningin Elisabethlei. Designed by Xaveer De Geyter Architects (XDGA) and inaugurated in 2017, its dynamic facade — defined by its slanted, folded shape — immediately catches the eye. The building spans 15 floors and includes not only offices, but also meeting rooms, public areas, and an auditorium. The design emphasizes sustainability and has achieved a BREEAM “Excellent” certification.
Our Approach
brainmove developed a pragmatic and effective methodology to accurately assess office occupancy. We used our own software tool, into which the architectural plans of the Province House were uploaded. During an on-site visit, all workspaces — including individual desks, meeting rooms, and alternative spaces such as quiet zones, coffee corners, and touchdown areas — were inventoried and coded into the system in collaboration with the client.
Our team then carried out observations in the building over a three-week period. Four times a day, they walked through all 15 floors with a tablet, recording the occupancy status of every workspace in our software. We made distinctions between:
- Occupied by a present employee
- Unoccupied
- Occupied by personal items (not available for others)
For meeting rooms, the number of attendees at each moment was also noted. This systematic and visually supported approach provided an exceptionally accurate picture of occupancy patterns across time and space.
The Result
Thanks to these measurements, the Province of Antwerp gained a clear, data-driven understanding of how its office infrastructure is truly used. Both average usage and peak load of individual workspaces and meeting rooms were mapped. The relationship between available capacity and real-world occupancy was also analyzed.
These insights form the foundation for a well-informed long-term workplace strategy, incorporating both infrastructural changes and behavioral aspects. Thanks to brainmove‘s transparent and visually supported reporting, the Province now has a powerful tool to guide its workplace policy into the future.
