Office of the Future

Situated at Working at Offices

My hypothesis is to improve the architectural process to develop great architectural office spaces for people, but what is a great architectural office space?

In my research in found the article “What Is the Office of the Furture?” that interviews different architects of today about tomorrow’s offices.

Overall they all say that the future office is open with small bokses for one-to-one meetings.

“…the next wave of offices is down to earth” and “…designed around employees’ needs and specific company culture.” (Bortolot 2013)

Barry Svigals of Svigals + Partners (New Haven, Conn)

Barry Svigals says that his “…architecture firm helps companies understand who they are and how to preserve that identity through effectively design space and use of resources.” (Bortolot 2013)

What his company does is deconstructing the relationships and reinvents them to develop the office of the future. The isolating office corner is no longer attractive, so the walls have come down and instead the must-have spaces are multipurpose spaces, which create conversation, cooperation and inspiration.

Brad Pease of Paladino (Seattle)

Open space and transparency cultivates open minds.

Reception areas and conference rooms: “We consider those things dead” (Bartolot 2013)

The new value is the access to ideas

The client has to see the value of the firm = See work in progress and people when arriving to the office

The reason for the changing from closed space to open space is also the feeling of walking into a space – do you feel that the office value the employees or not. If the space is open it shows that the office values the employees.

James G. Phillips of TPG Architecture (New York)

“…it’s [now] about people more than anything” (Bartolot 2013)

He also says that the offices have learned from the retail industry about handling clients and branding the office for the clients.

Janice Barnes of Perkins+Will (New York)

“It’s about how you give a consistent message to a client you want to attract and what you want to communicate to your employees” (Bartolot 2013)

Sustainable design and employee issues is a new trend

Many firms are already creating mindful environments

Tomas Bercy of Bercy Chen Studio (Austin)

Cost and flexibility is the most important for small businesses.

The future office is complete openness and one-to-one meeting spaces. There is no desk dedicated to one person but many stations where the employees can plug-in.

He also thinks that flexibility is a new kind of sustainability

Chris Bockstael of Svigals + Partners (New York)

The offices have to be designed to fit the up-and-coming Gen Y work force that is confident, connected and open to change. They want to enjoy the work environment – an environment that promotes collaboration

My comment:

I find these comments very interesting because I can see myself – as a Gen Y work force (born from 1978-1991 – I’m from 1986). Many of the employees I have spoken to is very afraid of open offices because of bad working environment in office domiciles built during the 90’s and the 00’s without consider the people working at the office. Noise is the worst part for employees. I find it very interesting to figure out, how the open office can be combined with noise-reduction, because I really agree in the open offices as a creative and social working environment.

I hope in my further research will figure out how to combine the open office with less noise. Maybe the word transparency is the key, but it has to be developed architectural so we do not get isolated offices with glass walls.