The built environment in academia is increasingly being used in a strategic way, and there is a current trend in the spatial design of academic workplaces towards the implementation of more flexible solutions. However, the heterogeneity of academic work creates a challenge for workplace design. Previous research has shown that researchers require places supporting both privacy and interaction, and there is a need to increase the understanding of how workplace design can tend to these needs. Therefore, the aim of this study was to increase the understanding of how the built environment in a modern university building affects the occupants’ work environment and possibilities to perform their work. Goffman’s dramaturgical framework was applied in a case study examining the research building Biomedicum at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden. One go-along interview and seven semi-structured interviews were carried out and the data were analyzed through content analysis. Three themes named after Goffman’s concepts were identified: the Back stage, the Front stage, and The team. The results showed that while the participant found it easy to identify suitable places for work-related interactions, they had a harder time finding places that supported privacy. In the light of Goffman’s dramaturgy, the results indicated that while the front stage had been successfully planned and built into Biomedicum, there was a lack of a back stage area. The findings of the study showed the importance of including different types of back stage areas in the design of academic workplaces to facilitate both privacy and interaction. In the design of the back stage, architectural and psychological privacy, as well as proximity to team members were important spatial features to acknowledge.

Arbetet omfattar två delar. Den första delen kommer att fokusera på den kommunikationsprocess som genomfördes under projekttiden för Malmö universitets byggnad Niagara samt de kommunikationsverktyg som nyttjades i kommunikationsprocessen. Den andra delen handlar om hur resultatet blev efter bytet av kontorstyp, personalens upplevelser och påverkan av arbetsmiljön. För att undersöka detta gjordes en fallstudie av byggnaden Niagara på Malmö universitet. Studien visar även hur kommunikationen såg ut under projekttiden, d.v.s. från arkitekttävlingens start 2009 till invigningen 2015. En litteraturstudie har pågått under arbetets gång och legat som grund till framtagning av relevanta intervjufrågor och har även används för att styrka och belysa aspekter som behandlas i diskussionen. För att få ett övergripande sammanhang användes flera metoder för att ge en mer rättvisande grund för analysen under den belysta tidsperioden, dessa var: enkätundersökningar, intervju och offentliga dokument.Resultatet visar att ett skifte mellan olika kontorstyper tar lång tid att organisera för att behålla en välfungerande arbetsmiljö. Det finns ingen mall för valet av kontorstyp utan det bör anpassas till den verksamhet som använder den, eftersom arbetsuppgifterna spelar stor roll för hur arbetsmiljön bör utformas. Arbetsmiljöns utformning påverkar hur kommunikationen sker, där fysiska förhållanden som privat eller publik tillgänglighet, rumslig öppenhet och avskildhet samt psykosociala förhållanden som samarbete, sociala kontakter och hälsa, spelar roll. Öppna kontorsmiljöer bygger på digitalisering, där material sparas elektroniskt och utrymmet för analog förvaring försvåras. Den akademiska världen verkar inte vara helt mottaglig för ett papperslöst utvecklingsskede än. / This study contains two parts. The first part will focus on the communication process that were present during the project period for the Malmö University building Niagara and the communication tools that were used in the communication process. The second part is about the result that the office type change brought, the staff experiences and the impact of the work environment. To investigate this, a case study of the Niagara building was made at Malmö University. The study also shows how communication looked like during the project period, i.e. from the start of the architectural competition in 2009 to the opening of 2015.A literature study has been ongoing during the course of the work and has been the basis for the development of relevant interview questions and has also been used to strengthen and highlight aspects discussed in the discussion. To get an overall context, several methods were used to provide a more accurate basis for the analysis during the illuminated period of time, such as: surveys, interview and public documents.The result shows that a shift, between different office types, takes a long time to organize to be able to maintain a well-functioning work environment. There is no template for the choice of office type, but it should be adapted to the activity that uses it, as the tasks play a major role in the way the work environment should be designed. The design of the work environment affects how communication takes place, where physical conditions such as private or public accessibility, spatial openness and seclusion and psychosocial conditions such as cooperation, social contracts and health, play a role. Open office environments are based on digitalization, where materials are stored electronically and the space for analog storage gets aggravated. The academic world does not seem to be completely receptive to a paperless development stage yet.