ARCHITECTS are designing a new generation of “fit” office buildings which encourage employees to become healthier by making them walk while they are at work. The buildings counter the chair-bound culture by putting meeting rooms, canteens and car parks a significant distance away from desks so workers have to expend energy getting to them.

There is a particular emphasis on persuading people to use stairs by giving them attractive views, while lifts are made more inaccessible and, in some buildings, only serve one floor in three.

The trend started in America but has now come to Britain with the recently completed re-design of one of London’s most prominent office complexes. The £35m refurbishment of the Broadgate Centre in the City includes grand sweeping staircases in foyers rather than lift shafts, which are instead tucked away.

“It’s a design policy for fitter people and a fitter environment”, said Larry Oltmanns, design partner at SOM architects, which oversaw the project. “It encourages walking without making it appear hard work. You can climb a whole storey without noticing.”

Office workers are being targeted as concern over soaring obesity levels grows. Earlier this month, Sir Liam Donaldson, the chief medical officer, urged adults to exercise for at least 30 minutes five times a week to improve their health.

Inactive lifestyles among the youngest age groups have led to fears that productivity may suffer among groups entering the workforce. The average person is recommended to take about 10,000 steps per day to maintain basic fitness, but few sedentary workers manage more than about 5,000.

“Just a 10-minute walk can add 1,000 steps, so initiatives such as encouraging staircase use can really help,” said Len Almond, director of the British Heart Foundation’s National Centre for Physical Activity and Health.

The drive to make offices more fitness-oriented is already well advanced in America. The US government’s centre for disease control has launched an initiative to encourage employers to be more “staircase friendly”. Those firms who cannot afford new buildings are advised to refurbish dank fire escapes.

In one television advertisement launched recently by Tommy Thompson, the US health secretary, a member of the public hands in two rolls of “love handle” fat found beside the staircase in a shopping centre. “Lots of people lose them taking the stairs instead of the escalator,” says the clerk at the lost property counter. Initiatives in some office buildings have included “skip-stop” lifts, which stop on only every third level to encourage use of the stairs, although at least one lift in every building will still stop at each floor for the benefit of disabled workers.

In Britain, the architects of the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline’s headquarters in Uxbridge, west London, included several “fit features” including the siting of the cafe at the furthest corner of the building so some workers have to walk a quarter of a mile to and from lunch.

Bob Hillier, chairman of Hillier Architecture, designers of the GlaxoSmithKline building, said lifts were a “necessary evil” in the 17-storey tower but that staircases on the corners of the building, overlooking a park, were “more fun”.

Jacqueline Kerr, senior researcher at the Munich cancer registry, who recently gave a lecture at the Royal Society of Medicine about stair use, said ways of encouraging the practice could include large posters at the bottom of escalators encouraging employees to take the stairs instead. In addition, long staircases should be broken up into flights of no more than nine stairs, to make them appear less daunting.

Not all experts agree with the attempt to make buildings more fit. James Woudhuysen, professor of forecasting and innovation at De Montfort University, said numbers of lifts and escalators should be increased to help an ageing population and those in a hurry. “Designing buildings to prevent obesity is yet another social responsibility given to architects whose job is not to change behaviour but to make great, cheap buildings.”

Official initiatives against obesity have been spurred by fears the NHS could be overwhelmed by ailments such as heart disease, strokes and diabetes caused by an overeating, underactive and overweight population.

If current trends continue, at least a third of British adults are expected to be obese by 2020, compared with 20% now. About three-quarters of men and two-thirds of women are either overweight or obese.

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