ainb.be / nouvelles / at work, one space fits all

ainb

At Work, One Space Fits All

27 juin 2022

Multi-flavoured office design

Today, the workspace needs to be easily adaptable to changing situations and needs. True, our expectations of what an office should be able to provide us had already seen massive change – even long before the pandemic kicked in. Multiple ways of working (alone and together), virtual meetings, and conversations in real life have led to a new sort of multiflavoured office design. The same square metres that in the morning safeguard a meeting room can host a brainstorming session in the afternoon and a film screening at night. Hungry for an energising, co-working ambiance? Go left to hit the extra-large communal table. Need a space to focus? Turn right for the soundproof single-occupant cubicles. Now that many people are back at the office to some extent, it may seem at first that we’re merely picking up on how an office space should behave from the moment we exchanged the corporate kingdom for our kitchen tables. But while Covid-19 surged outside our homes, the specifics of a functional, healthy, and productive office did, in fact, evolve.

Design based on activities

One reason for the recent disruption of office culture as we know it is activitybased work (ABW). “Office design today is rather based on activities,” says architect Nikoline Dyrup Carlsen. “It demands a range of different zones within the office space, where an employee is able to be working in a space depending on the activities and tasks they have at hand. Examples of this could be silent, knowledge sharing, or even social zones.” Dyrup Carlsen is co-founder of Spacon & X, a Scandinavian interior design studio that has built flexible and adaptable spaces since its inception in 2014. “We believe that spatial optimisation – making space suitable to support multiple functions and activities – will in turn provide optimised, sustainable solutions for an improved urban life,” she says. The ultimate goal? “Provide better ways of living and working in an urban context, where shortage of space is a key issue.” One example of what

that might look like is the workspace they designed for Space 10, IKEA’s research and design lab. Spacon & X used partition walls and other elements that act as temporary dividers to ensure the space can be used for a multitude of purposes. “The new design needed to forefront well-being and productivity, as well as accommodate its growing workforce,” explains Dyrup Carlsen. To do so, the formerly open-plan office space was divided into an area made up of several semi-open ‘cubes’ that act as on-demand workspaces and meeting rooms. “By making their office more flexible, we effectively tackled the issue of co-workers getting disturbed in an open office space.”

She stresses that this new typology of office design caters to employees’ changing moods and needs throughout the day. “It shows that you can easily allow for people to both engage in social activities and workshop-based ones, but at the same time there is space for privacy, focus, and concentration.” The partition walls are a clear example of how such objects can act as psychological boundaries, allowing the space to feel like it can be transformed into one that suits most employees’ needs. “In one cubicle you can have a collaborative and social feeling, while in another one you can portion off the rest of the space to be able to focus.” Although Space 10’s office was initially designed in 2019, it doesn’t feel dated. According to Dyrup Carlsen, it was never meant to be ‘finished’. On the contrary. “The office space was designed to enhance long-term flexibility and allow for constant evolution.”

Let’s dance

Flexibility, adaptability, and partition walls are also the office supplies of another contemporary take on the concept of ‘office design’: the Dancing Office. In the words of its creator, Swiss architect Stephan Hürlemann, this reimagined design with a striking name represents a new space philosophy that focuses on change as a continual value. “We live in a time of accelerated change. The world as we know it is being turned upside down almost weekly. Adaptability is more important today than ever before. This also affects companies and their architecture,” says Hürlemann. Consisting of partition walls and furniture on castors, the room concept allows employees to redesign the work environment according to their needs – every hour, or just once a year, just as they require. The main protagonist of the Dancing Office is the Dancing Wall, a mobile partition that is available in various configurations, from shelving and vertical work surfaces to a screen trolley, coat rack, or plant wall. Combining different Dancing Walls with each other creates different working situations.

Hürlemann’s activating design caught the eye of office design giant Vitra. Together they then developed the Dancing Wall into a series product. “I no longer aim for a final room layout with the Dancing Office,” he says. “Rather, I give companies a set of tools with which they can easily and quickly adapt their spaces to new requirements. The office as a permanent beta version becomes a stage for individual needs.”

No longer trapped

Call it stage or space, it’s clear the audience – or should we say, the users – have become more demanding. “We’re designing for a new generation that is different. People who are no longer trapped only in career thinking. They are looking for a balance between work, family, recreation, consumption, and inspiration. They now want to have a nice workplace and enjoy life every day. For this reason, the demands on the working world have become much more complex.”

The new spatial concept should make people want to actively bring about change. Which is why it uses the term ‘dancing’. “It is about the joy of movement, change, and the interaction of the individual protagonists. I recently added a multifunctional micro-office called Talky to the Dancing Office product family. This soundproofed and ventilated box offers space for focused work or, for example, to participate in video conferences undisturbed. At the same time, the box activates the outside space with exchangeable elements such as shelves, work tables, coat racks, whiteboards or plants, etc.”

As far as the shelf life of the open-plan office goes? Well, it never really left the premises, although in the classic ‘all-open’ approach, “walls are certainly something that is often missing,” says Hürlemann. “Walls are valuable because they zone spaces, offer opportunities for retreat, are acoustically effective, and you can visualize thoughts on them. That’s why I developed the mobile Dancing Wall with Vitra. For me, it was important that it feels like a real wall. It is vertically perpendicular, reliable, and stable. And yet it can be moved very easily – in contrast to built walls. Which saves time, costs, and emissions.”

“[Open-plan is] here to stay,” agrees Dyrup Carlsen, pointing out the exponentially growing need for knowledge-sharing, collaboration, and cross-disciplinarity alongside the shifting demands and needs within offices on a large scale. And let’s not forget, “employees need to be able to focus. By combining an open-plan office space with elements that allow for spatial division and temporary transformation, more people’s needs are taken into account.”  Certainly a win-win situation.

retour vers liste