Francis Cuthbert Duffy (born 3 September 1940
) is a British architect, a founder of DEGW, the international Architecture, architectural and design practice best known for office design and workplace strategy and, more recently for advanced thinking on the programming of educational and arts facilities. Duffy is particularly noted for his work on the future of the office and the flexible use of space.
He was president of the RIBA from 1993 to 1995. He was appointed a Order of the British Empire, Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the New Year Honours 1997. In 2004, he received the British Council of Offices (BCO) President's Award for Lifetime Achievement and in 2008 was named by ''Facilities Magazine'' as one of 25 Pioneers of Facilities Management in the UK. He is currently on the Board of Trustees of The Architecture Foundation.
In the 1960s, Duffy was responsible for introducing ''burolandschaft, Bürolandschaft ''(Office landscape, office landscaping) into the English-speaking world. His doctoral research at Princeton University, Princeton was focused on the mapping the relationship between organisational structure and office layouts. In the 1970s, he was one of the pioneers who introduced North American practice in Space Planning and Facility management into Europe. He coined the concept of "Shell, Services, Scenery and Sets"(or Shearing layers), the analysis of buildings and building components in terms of layers of longevity to facilitate the accommodation of technological and organisational change. This concept was later elaborated by Stewart Brand in his book How Buildings Learn, How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They're Built (Brand, 1994). In the 1980s Duffy and his DEGW colleagues initiated the ORBIT (Office Research: Buildings and Information Technology) into the impact on office design of advances in Information Technology. This research had a substantial impact initially on key British office projects such as Broadgate and Stockley Park and then on office design worldwide. More recently Duffy's interests have focused on the challenges that increasing reliance on virtual communications is bringing into urban design – asking the question, "In an increasingly virtual world what arguments can architects and urbanists use to justify spaces and places?"
National Life Stories conducted an oral history interview (C467/103) with Francis Duffy in 2013 for its Architects Lives' collection held by the British Library.
[National Life Stories, 'Duffy, Francis (1 of 3) National Life Stories Collection: Architects' Lives', The British Library Board, 2013]
Retrieved 10 April 2018
Frank Duffy was editor of th
Architectural Association Journal(1965–67) and o
Facilities(1982–90).
As a consultant specialising in Workplace Strategy for almost 40 years, Duffy has worked internationally for a wide variety of corporate and government clients. DEGW now has offices in the UK, the US, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Singapore and Australia.
Works
# "Burolandschaft", ''Architectural Review'' (February 1964)
# "Some notes on Archigram", House & Garden (magazine), ''House & Garden'' 129 (February 1966) p. 171–172
# ''Office Landscaping'', Anbar Publications (1966), also published in Sweden as ''Kontolandsskap ''(1967)
# "Work, Organization, Behavior, and Office Buildings: Some Proposals for Analysis and Design." Thesis (Master of Architecture), University of California, Berkeley (September 1969)
# "Office Interiors and Organizations" Dissertation (PhD), Princeton University (1974)
# Planning Office Space, Princeton Architectural Press, Architectural Press, (1976), also published in Spain as ''Officinas ''(1976)
#
Office Buildings and Organisational Change, Anthony King, Buildings and Society (1980)
The ORBIT Study, Information Technology and Office Design(1983)
The Changing City Bulstrode Press (1989) with Alex Henney
The Changing Workplace Phaidon (1992) with Patrick Hannay
The Responsible Workplace, Butterworth Architecture(1993) with Andrew Laing and Vic Crisp
The New Office, Conran Octopus(1997) with Kenneth Powell
# "The New Office." Facilities Design and Management (12 October 1998)
New Environments for Working Construction Research Publications (1998) with Andrew Laing, Denice Jaunzens and Steve Willis
Architectural Knowledge: The Idea of a Profession E & FN Spon (1998) with Les Hutton
Design for Change: The Architecture of DEGW Birkhauser (1998) also published in German as ''Flexible Gebaude''
Work and the CityBlack Dog Publishing
(2008)
References
External links
DEGW
Portrait of Frank Duffy (National Portrait Gallery)
HOW TELECOMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS ARE TRANSFORMING URBAN SPACES By Mitchell L. Moss and Anthony M. Townsend
{{DEFAULTSORT:Duffy, Frank
Living people
1940 births
20th-century British architects
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
Princeton University School of Architecture alumni
Presidents of the Royal Institute of British Architects