Making space for community

There’s a great opportunity for underused office space to benefit local people. But how do we go beyond a nice idea in principle to helping this work in practice? TP Bennett’s Making Space report surveyed developers, landlords, organisations and design teams to find out – this research became a manifesto for change.

The Covid-19 pandemic and technological advances have changed the nature of the workplace, accelerating a shift towards hybrid working that has now become the norm. As a result, offices need to work harder to attract and retain talent, providing spaces that bring people together and offer a richer variety of amenities. At the same time, reduced time in the office means that many such buildings, with their enhanced facilities, are underused: average occupancy across the working week is just 54% (JLL, Global Future of Work Survey, 2024). This doesn’t signal the end of the office, as more than three-quarters of organisations still see it as essential, but it does highlight a growing disparity between the perceived importance of the workplace and how often it is actually used.

Just as offices evolve, however, community spaces are disappearing. Between 2018 and 2023, 46 spaces have permanently closed in London alone (source: Foundation For Future London, 2024) due to budget cuts, rising utility bills, staffing and operational costs. The need for that space hasn’t disappeared with these venues.

In 2025, TP Bennett published Making Space, a report calling for the latency in office buildings to be used to support local people in different ways. The practice’s research surveyed occupiers, landlords and community organisations to understand how they would respond to the prospect of sharing space. Many stakeholders agreed: 94% think offices should consider supporting community or charity groups (TP Bennett, 2025). So how do we make this a reality?

First, by design. As architects, we can create buildings with greater flexibility to serve alternative purposes from the outset: furniture that can be easily moved without disruption, foldable partitions to shape space to meet varying needs, even adjustable lighting to turn a meeting room into a calm sanctuary for a yoga class. This flexibility also needs to extend to access arrangements and contracts. Short-term leases and co-working options make space affordable and accessible, allowing workspaces to be simply shared between businesses, startups, charities and groups.

This is not a straightforward shift, however, despite demand. The data showed that 4 in 10 respondents already share space, but 6 in 10 would be willing to – in the gap between aspiration and action, we find the barriers. The most significant, cited by 80% of respondents, was security and protecting workplace confidentiality and only 40% believe their spaces are sufficiently flexible to allow it. The clear preference was to make space available in the evenings, outside the working day, in a similar way, perhaps, to the use of school sports or meeting facilities outside school and term time.

Technology also has a role to play in making this work. Smart systems can be used to match space to needs, manage bookings, track usage and even optimise energy efficiency, while partnerships with schools or libraries can expand local services in a managed, efficient way. Importantly, there is no single solution as to how much or how space can be shared, so the report outlined ‘degrees of making space’, from initial exploration into how it could work to an advanced, fully integrated shared workplace:

- Let others book meeting rooms occasionally

- Share common areas (e.g. cafés, auditoria)

- Allow controlled access to specific facilities

- Provide dedicated space for regular community use

- Offer permanent space for community organisations.

These steps show that the shift from private to more public use doesn’t have to be ‘all or nothing’, as even small actions can make a big difference to community groups faced with high room hire fees and running costs. If we rethink commercial property as a community resource, with developers, landlords and tenants repositioned as custodians rather than occupiers of a place, there’s huge potential to generate social as much as economic value through the sector’s investment in it.