The Design of Workscapes: A Scoping Study

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This manuscript explores the potential of business districts in shaping future working scenarios. The research is conducted with meticulous attention to detail, and the charts are presented with high aesthetic quality, demonstrating significant theoretical value. Below are some suggestions for enhancing the dissemination of the academic ideas:

Suggestion 1: In the introduction section, it is recommended to adopt a globally universal perspective rather than focusing exclusively on the Netherlands. For example, the Netherlands can serve as a case study within a broader international context.

Suggestion 2: In the "1.5 Research significance and objective" section, the explanation of the research significance appears somewhat vague. It is suggested to clearly articulate the key scientific questions. Specifically, expressions such as those in Line 201 seem to present the study as a case analysis specific to the Netherlands. This could also be clarified to ensure broader applicability and relevance.

Suggestion 3: In the "2 The need for a spatial perspective" section, the logical structure should be refined to emphasize theoretical breakthroughs. For instance: First, review the research progress on spatial quality evaluation and introduce the evaluation radar chart shown in Figure 2. Second, elaborate on the data sources and processing methods. Finally, explain the classification methodology of spatial typology for business districts, ensuring that the discussion extends beyond the Netherlands to provide a more generalized framework.

Suggestion 4: What is the logical connection between the spatial typology and the subsequent research? In other words, given that the quantitative evaluation of spatial quality has been completed, would it be more scientifically valuable to classify business district types using advanced methods such as cluster analysis? This approach could enhance the robustness  of the findings.

Author Response

Dear reviewer, we appreciate your suggestions a lot and have marked the revisions in the manuscript in red.

Suggestion 1: In the introduction section, it is recommended to adopt a globally universal perspective rather than focusing exclusively on the Netherlands. For example, the Netherlands can serve as a case study within a broader international context.

Response 1: Thank you for pointing this out. We agree with this comment. Therefore, we have changed the abstract and introduction accordingly in lines 10-11, 17-18, 29-31. To adopt a more globally universal perspective, we deleted references to the specific Dutch context in part of the study that was more broadly applicable, in lines 302-305.

Suggestion 2: In the "1.5 Research significance and objective" section, the explanation of the research significance appears somewhat vague. It is suggested to clearly articulate the key scientific questions. Specifically, expressions such as those in Line 201 seem to present the study as a case analysis specific to the Netherlands. This could also be clarified to ensure broader applicability and relevance.

Response 2: Many thanks for highlighting this vagueness. We agree with this comment and changed lines 197 – 217 accordingly. Instead of presenting the key scientific questions, we articulated the research objective more explicitly and coherently with the results section.

Suggestion 3: In the "2 The need for a spatial perspective" section, the logical structure should be refined to emphasize theoretical breakthroughs. For instance: First, review the research progress on spatial quality evaluation and introduce the evaluation radar chart shown in Figure 2. Second, elaborate on the data sources and processing methods. Finally, explain the classification methodology of spatial typology for business districts, ensuring that the discussion extends beyond the Netherlands to provide a more generalized framework.

Response 3: Thank you for suggesting refining the structure of this section. We agree and have revised the structure into section 2. Materials and methods, lines 218-464. The categorization of business districts was important in defining the geographical scope and is thus we presented this before the data sources and processing methods.

Suggestion 4: What is the logical connection between the spatial typology and the subsequent research? In other words, given that the quantitative evaluation of spatial quality has been completed, would it be more scientifically valuable to classify business district types using advanced methods such as cluster analysis? This approach could enhance the robustness of the findings.

Response 4: Thank you for this suggestion. The structure of section 2 is revised to emphasize the connection between the spatial typology and the subsequent research. Next to the structure of this section, we revised lines 232-237 accordingly.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors,

The paper is very well written and provides a valuable contribution to the analysis of the spatial quality of business districts and their transformative potential. The research presents a clear methodology and utilizes relevant indicators for evaluating spatial quality, making the paper worthy of acceptance. One aspect that may hinder the reading experience is the frequent references to the appendices, which require readers to interrupt their flow and refer back to them. I would recommend, if possible, incorporating additional data into the main body of the text or reducing the number of references to the appendices, to make the paper more coherent and easier to follow.

Best regards

Author Response

Dear reviewer, we appreciate your suggestions a lot and have marked the revisions in the manuscript in red.

Recommendation 1: Incorporate additional data into the main body of the text or reducing the number of references to the appendices, to make the paper more coherent and easier to follow.

Response 1: Thank you for this recommendation. We agree that the number of references to the appendices is high. We tried adding some figures to the main body of text, however as the appendices are quite extensive, we found that this also affected the readability of the text. Therefore, we decided not to add the remaining figures and tables to the main body of the text. However, we removed references to the appendices in places in the text where these were less supporting, in lines 150 and 158. This avoids the overly shifting back-and-forth in the document while reading.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper aims to establish a framework for defining the spatial quality of Dutch business districts and understand them as workscapes.
The study contributes to fill the research gap identified by the authors  (a lack of comprehensive and universal methodologies to evaluate the spatial characteristics of business districts and understand these districts as potential workscapes).
The spatial perspective and landscape approach is enhanced as relevant to provide support comprehensive understanding and effective guidance for future planning.
The study address the emerging topic of “workscapes” in a relevant way, aiming to support the better framing and methodological structure of the research field.
The proposed framework and indicators represent a consistent and innovative advance, integrating previous research results and validating the proposed approach with a significant applied research on Dutch business districts. The analysis of Dutch business district is supported by a consistent amount of data and presented in an overall clear and graphically appealing way in the Annexes.
Few aspects of the introduction can be better developed to support the readers:

    Lines 41–46: Why do government subsidies currently support monofunctional business centers? Is it a matter of the power of big corporate interests (at the expense of public and environmental interests), or was it a policy that once made sense (e.g., to attract investments) but now proves to be short-sighted?
    line 55: the VROMraad and the Taskforce (her)ontwikkeling bedrijventerreinen can be better presented and described as pioneer experiences in dealing with the topic of workscapes.

I very much appreciated the quality of the graphic material supporting the article. One small improvement: in ANNEX A, it would be helpful to add the names of the main locations to the maps to assist with orientation.
The paper conclusions are clear, and the limitations of the study are clearly expressed.
Minor suggestions and formatting corrections:
- line 27: the formatting of the title 1.Introduction is wrong in the pdf (the title is shifted to the left)
- lines 315 and 329: there are corrections left in review mode

Author Response

Dear reviewer, we appreciate your suggestions a lot and have marked the revisions in the manuscript in red.

Comment 1:     Lines 41–46: Why do government subsidies currently support monofunctional business centers? Is it a matter of the power of big corporate interests (at the expense of public and environmental interests), or was it a policy that once made sense (e.g., to attract investments) but now proves to be short-sighted?
Response 1: Thank you for flagging this unclarity in the introduction. We agree with this and rephrased this accordingly in lines 42-55.

Comment 2: line 55: the VROMraad and the Taskforce (her)ontwikkeling bedrijventerreinen can be better presented and described as pioneer experiences in dealing with the topic of workscapes.
Response 2: Many thanks for pointing this out. We agree and rephrased this in lines 64-66.

Comment 3: In ANNEX A, it would be helpful to add the names of the main locations to the maps to assist with orientation.
Response 3: Thank you for this suggestion. We tried to add the names of the 40 cases to the maps, however, as these maps are already quite dense in information, and because of their scale, it became too unclear. Therefore, we did not add the names to Appendix 1.

Comment 4: In line 27: the formatting of the title 1.Introduction is wrong in the pdf (the title is shifted to the left)
Response 4: Thank you for pointing this out. We have corrected the formatting of title 1.Introduction in line 28.

Comment 5: In lines 315 and 329: there are corrections left in review mode
Response 5: Thank you for pointing this out. We have deleted all corrections that were left in review mode.

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

It is a high quality research paper. The research question focuses on an essential urban/rural development problem, practically based on the Dutch model, but the relevance is much wider. With a 20% of built areas the business districts play a determining role in effecting our urban or rural environment.

The 3800 Dutch business districts are challenging a quantity if the evaluation is wider than a map analysis. The methodology is well based on literature and offers an aim-oriented typology and quantitative analysis method. There are still some remaining question according to the method, the typology. 1.) The site or spatial analyses part is worked out along four types of business districts, defined on urban and/or rural environmental and structural fundaments. As mentioned in the literature analysis, the Dutch National Workscapes of the Future program  described five segments of business districts, both on functional characteristics and environmental aspects, like campus/innovation, mixed urban, regular, large-scale urban and large-scale functional districts. How much this categorization is reflected in the present four types? When looking at the functional composition of the chosen 40 business district sites we find that the industrial function is determining in more than 50%. The edge-city position is seen to have potential to benefit from more vibrant urban environment, but what about the environmental loads of an overwhelming industrial function function?

There are still several questions remained unanswered or open.

The 3-30-300 rule might be a key element or a relevant guide to urban green infrastructure development. This rule is relevant in urban greening. It would be nice to have a deeper understanding how and how much this rule could be integrated into a business district open space development. The lack of public spaces and the low level of green coverage and the overall green spaces should be in the focus of development based on relevant urban green infrastructure issues and paper in the EU and in the region. 

The discussion states an essential question about the possibility and method of the qualitative analyses of urban and open space design within the surveyed land use type. Both the best practice analysis and research through design could result informative survey findings that offer help for a research based design.

The conclusion part could be strengthened to highlight the differences of the four types and probably to define and analyze a "best practice" case study from among the 40 study sites.

The appendix p. 712 publish the composition of construction periods of business buildings for the chosen 40 district sites. The dominance of the last building period covers a 44years long time, while earlier, 20th century periods are only 10-20 years long. Does it mean that the given building methods, rules and regulations have not changed in almost a half of a century long period? Is it realistic that no relevant changes happened in, for example the public open space and green cover aspect from the last decades of the 20tn up to 2024? Due to severe urbanization process and the ever-growing climate change problem brought up the UGI, the urban green infrastructure concept.  

Some minor editing corrections are needed before publishing. (lines 272, 315, ...)

Author Response

Dear reviewer, we appreciate your suggestions a lot and have marked the revisions in the manuscript in red.

Comment 1: There are still some remaining question according to the method, the typology: How much this categorization is reflected in the present four types? When looking at the functional composition of the chosen 40 business district sites we find that the industrial function is determining in more than 50%. The edge-city position is seen to have potential to benefit from more vibrant urban environment, but what about the environmental loads of an overwhelming industrial function? 

Response 1: Many thanks for pointing out this unclarity. The four types are based on the long-term structures. Related to these four types of districts, this research identifies three types of transformative development of business districts into workscapes, due to for instance the environmental load/functions on-site. However, with changing trends, economy and society, this is more short-term and site-specific. The research therefore identifies the following strategies: preserving industrial characteristics while improving work and environmental qualities; urban redevelopment requiring e.g. revised zoning plans; and immediate implementable integral transformation. As this was only mentioned in the discussion, this is more explicitly added to the results in lines 549 – 559.

Comment 2: The 3-30-300 rule might be a key element or a relevant guide to urban green infrastructure development. This rule is relevant in urban greening. It would be nice to have a deeper understanding how and how much this rule could be integrated into a business district open space development. The lack of public spaces and the low level of green coverage and the overall green spaces should be in the focus of development based on relevant urban green infrastructure issues and paper in the EU and in the region. 

Response 2: We appreciate this insight and we fully agree with your comment. Regarding the implementation of such a rule in business districts, for instance, in the 1e Merwedehaven+Oostpoort district, there is only 3,8% of public space present, only including infrastructure. In locations like these, 30% of canopy coverage can only be achieved when private owners align with the ambition and contribute to this. As presented in Appendix A, page 21, most of the business districts will be confronted by this whenever such a rule is accepted. This should indeed be the focus of development, therefore, the research advocates for the landscape-driven approach with indicators such as canopy coverage and green space being highly important in the framework. To make this more explicit, the conclusion section is rephrased in lines: 682-691.

Comment 3: The discussion states an essential question about the possibility and method of the qualitative analyses of urban and open space design within the surveyed land use type. Both the best practice analysis and research through design could result informative survey findings that offer help for a research based design. The conclusion part could be strengthened to highlight the differences of the four types and probably to define and analyze a "best practice" case study from among the 40 study sites. 

Response 3: Thank you for this suggestion. We agree that the best practice analysis and research through design could result in informative findings that offer help for a research-based design. However, the highest-scoring site among the 40 study sites is not necessarily the best practice in designing workscapes, it is only the best-scoring site among this set. The set of sites is selected based on its diversity in urbanity, environmental zone, typology, etc. To work on a thorough best practice analysis, a set of good examples should first be selected, and a systemic comparative design analysis should be conducted. That is outside the scope of this research. However, we suggested this more explicitly in the discussion and conclusion in lines 600-606 and 693-695.

Comment 4: The appendix p. 712 publish the composition of construction periods of business buildings for the chosen 40 district sites. The dominance of the last building period covers a 44years long time, while earlier, 20th century periods are only 10-20 years long. Does it mean that the given building methods, rules and regulations have not changed in almost a half of a century long period? Is it realistic that no relevant changes happened in, for example the public open space and green cover aspect from the last decades of the 20tn up to 2024? Due to severe urbanization process and the ever-growing climate change problem brought up the UGI, the urban green infrastructure concept.   

Response 4: Many thanks for your comment. We see how this can be a confusing categorization, especially as the reasoning behind this is not explained in the accompanying text. We have added this explanation to the appendix, lines 740-742.

Whilst the concept of business districts has existed for over a century, their evolution has been shaped by several pivotal moments that also affected the architecture of their buildings. The temporal categorization of the construction years of buildings in the selected business districts is based on these events, as outlined by Louw et al. (2004, pp. 16–19). The Industrial Revolution (late 19th century) led to the displacement of industry from urban areas. In the 1920s, Functionalist planning introduced strict functional segregation, further influencing spatial organization. The rise of the automobile in the 1950s contributed to the increasing separation of living and working environments. By the 1960s, the limited availability of land on city peripheries prompted new development strategies, culminating in the emergence of highway-oriented business locations in the 1980s. These factors have reinforced the persistence of monofunctional business districts. Although the multifunctional Workscapes concept was introduced by the VROMraad in 2006, it has not been implemented in practice.

Louw, E., Needham, D. B., Holden, H., & Pen, C. J. (2004). Planning van bedrijventerreinen. Den Haag: Sdu Uitgevers.

Comment 5: Some minor editing corrections are needed before publishing. (lines 272, 315, ...)
Response 5: Thank you for pointing this out. We have deleted all corrections that were left in review mode.