The functional brief should start with a description of the organization that is to be accommodated in the building, insofar as this has not already been covered in the strategic brief. Relevant information might be the projected number of users, expected future changes in this number, and basic user characteristics such as function, background and age groupwhere relevant to the design. In addition, there should be information about the structure of the user organization. For a school project, it will for example be crucial to know how many classes there are, of what size and for which age groups. For an office organization, it will useful to have a description of the size and responsibilities of the different departments to be accommodated in the building. Alongside these factual aspects, it will be useful to describe softer organizational aspects such as the identity and culture of the user organization.ActivitiesA crucial part of the organizational description, is an explanation of the activities or business processes to be facilitated by the building. For a hospital, it can be a description of the kind of medical treatments that are being offered. For a school, it will be a description of the educational programme plus any extracurricular activities. For an office, it may be the business processes that take place in the different departments (e.g. sales, marketing, research or policy making). The description of these activities does not have to be very detailed (details are likely to change over time), but it should give the design team a clear understanding of the functional purpose of the building. The challenge will be to look beyond current activity patterns and envision how things will be once the building is completed and in use. 32