The Evolution of Offices

An office is a room or place where people work on their duties. In terms of architecture, it can either be a small structure, one that covers an entire floor of a building, or one where a single company occupies an entire building.

Its term actually dates back to history from ancient Rome. It comes from the Latin word "officium" which means "service," "sense of duty," "courtesy," or "ceremony." It can be translated to the Greek word "kathekon" which means "appropriate behavior," "befitting actions," "convenient action for nature," or "proper function."

In the Notitia Dignitatum, an old Roman document of the Roman imperial chanceries, there is information on the organization of both the eastern and western empires whose thousands of offices all the way from the imperial court to the provincial level are listed. It also contains a list of government officials such as the leading court, military and provincial officers. Hence, the modern term "officer" originates from the word "officialis", which refers to the "bureau," meaning a dignitary’s administrative officer.

Before the modern office space Raleigh came to be, offices were located in temples or were adjoined to a palace complex in ancient Rome. These old offices—which were called libraries—had rooms where scrolls where kept and functioned as workplaces for scribes. However, these scribes were more than just for literary purposes. They were not only composed of poetry or other works of fiction, but these scribes were also written for administrative or business purposes. For instance, the scrolls held important records, such as treaties and edicts.

The modern office space Raleigh also has its origins during the High Middle Ages when the chancery was established. A chancery was a medieval writing office where official documents were recorded and kept. This kind of office had walls full of pigeonholes—which functioned like bookshelves—to hold scrolls of parchments.

The ancient offices had separate rooms for a private office and private library. Later on, during the Industrial Revolution, more office spaces were needed for clerks to do their work, such as accounting and filing documents. This old office space resembled what are now cubicles seen in office space Tampa for privacy. Furthermore, the high demand for office space led to the rise of multi-storey buildings.