Hardenberg, a small town in the east of the Netherlands, has a striking town hall. The building, which was completed in 2012, has a compact, rounded shape and a yellow, gold- like facade with an irregular window pattern. When the sun shines, the quirky building looks like a glittering jewel box Architects (original although the locals have also likened it to a pineapple and building) and a beehive. From a functional point of view, the beehive metaphor is a the building does indeed buzz with activity. In fact, until recently, many employees felt that there was too much office buzz and complained about the noise and distractions in the largely open work areas. In 2017, the city embarked on a refurbishment project to improve the acoustics and to solve several other practical issues. The direct trigger for the project was the desire to add a further 80 employees to the buildings existing 320 users. In terms of capacity, the building could easily accommodate these extra users, but all stakeholders agreed that for this to work, the overall work environment would need to be significantly improved. The engineering firm Royal HaskoningDHV was brought in to explore how this could be done. Its consultant, Niek Janssen, explains: To accommodate the extra users, it was decided to make better use of the available space, aiming at a sharing ratio of 0.7 workstation per FTE, instead of existing 1.0 workstation per FTE. He explains that a ratio of 0.7 is quite normal in the Netherlands, especially for public sector organizations where a lot of people work part-time, resulting in relatively low occupancy levels. Niek stresses, however, that the operation was not just about intensifying the use of space. Based on extensive talks with staff, management and the workers council, we made several changes to the mix of work settings.