Office design will evolve to accommodate changing work approaches and cultures. The future of the office is open, striking a balance for different work styles.
George EvansDec 25, 202368 Shares33796 Views“„I don’t see [open-plan offices] changing any time soon. The mistake of critics is thinking of them as huge open spaces like gymnasiums, lined with rows of identical workstations and no partitions or privacy.- Ashley Dunn, AIA
“„The effective, high-performing open-plan offices that we design, and that our clients and their employees love, feature a variety of work areas and furnishings to accommodate diverse work styles, and a range of meeting room types and sizes.- Ashley Dunn, AIA
“„Most of these rooms have doors that close, often made of glass so that the natural daylight and exterior views that we integrate into the open-plan area reach into those huddle spaces and conference rooms.- Ashley Dunn, AIA
“„The open-plan office is the future of workplace design, but it’s a matter of finding the right balance.- Andrew Franz, AIA, LEED AP
“„It’s important to incorporate a variety of more intimate spaces to accommodate different working modes. Considering acoustics is also crucial in order to limit distractions.- Andrew Franz, AIA, LEED AP
“„The open office should be approached as an ecosystem of spaces that thrives when there is diversity and has functions that support one another.- Kendra Locklear Ordia, ASID, IIDA, RID, NCIDQ, LEED AP
“„Employees should be free to choose from a variety of work settings to allow the range of work that needs to happen in a day, from focused to collaborative.- Kendra Locklear Ordia, ASID, IIDA, RID, NCIDQ, LEED AP
“„Increased adoption of wellness and enhanced user experience will also allow greater user control at the individual level allowing adjustments in thermal comfort, lighting, and acoustical privacy.- Kendra Locklear Ordia, ASID, IIDA, RID, NCIDQ, LEED AP
“„What needs special consideration is everything else - all the other spaces surrounding the open office. This secondary, supportive space makes or breaks the open-office experience.- Sara Barnes
“„As desk space becomes more consolidated over time, it becomes critical for break-out spaces to be provided at a higher quantity and quality to create a restorative office space.- Sara Barnes
“„Users should feel that they are gaining additional spaces in which to focus and meet, as when an open-office plan is done well, versus being left with a non-functioning, loud, over-stimulating workplace when it’s done poorly.- Sara Barnes
“„The office always has been an evolution, which continues to respond to changes in culture, technology, and social influencers. It looks different today than it did 20 years ago and will look different again in another five years.- Louise Sharp
“„I think it’s about finding the appropriate balance of openness.- Louise Sharp
“„The design of the office environment should always respond to the functions of the client, which are most likely different from one to the next.- Louise Sharp
“„As long as the open office is supported by a variety of diverse spaces which allow private or focused moments and minimize both visual and acoustic distractions, the space will suit the function.- Louise Sharp
“„The open-office layout is the most efficient way of maximizing square footage per person.- Julia Libby, Associate AIA
“„As real estate prices go up, companies often do not have any choice but to reduce the number of private offices and introduce the open-plan concept.- Julia Libby, Associate AIA
“„However, we do tend to test our limits with open offices by not providing enough personal, storage, meeting, or amenity space.- Julia Libby, Associate AIA
“„I believe the open office will continue to evolve over time, always seeking a balance between these factors.- Julia Libby, Associate AIA
“„The open-office layout is extremely beneficial for collaboration, socialization, learning opportunities, and expressing a flat hierarchy.- Julia Libby, Associate AIA
“„Like a pendulum, the trend of open offices seems to swing back and forth.- Lynn Brotman, IIDA, NCIDQ
“„Today’s workplaces require a mix of both open plan and private space. Combinations of private, open, and collaborative spaces lead to the solutions that we have found work the best.- Lynn Brotman, IIDA, NCIDQ
“„Open-plan offices are not an all-or-nothing proposition. This also holds true for touchdown and hoteling spaces. It’s all about choices.- Lynn Brotman, IIDA, NCIDQ
“„The determination of whether spaces and workstations are unassigned or mixed with assigned and single function should reflect the culture of the company or work group.- Lynn Brotman, IIDA, NCIDQ
“„Huddle rooms, quiet rooms, room schedulers for larger conference rooms, and teleconferencing all foster the employee’s ability to choose where and how to work. Wireless infrastructure is critical for supporting those choices for all this to happen.- Lynn Brotman, IIDA, NCIDQ
“„It all comes down to flexibility - supporting the staff’s ability to select the area where they feel most productive for the specific type of task or work being produced.- Lynn Brotman, IIDA, NCIDQ
“„Leading companies at the front end of the curve know that their employees are more productive when they have options that suit their individual work styles.- Ashley Dunn, AIA
“„These days our designs, which typically include some amount of open-plan office area, all incorporate appealing amenities, a mix of work area types, a range of seat and work-surface heights, and layouts and programming that encourage activity and promote wellbeing.- Ashley Dunn, AIA
“„Using stairs and mezzanines is just one approach, encouraging users to move throughout the day, generating happenstance meetings and the exchange of ideas.- Andrew Franz, AIA, LEED AP
“„Other techniques for workplaces include creating spatial juxtapositions and multiple circulation pathways.- Andrew Franz, AIA, LEED AP
“„We have seen amenity and community spaces increase, but one of the greatest changes we will see is the desire for increased access to nature (not just views of nature, interior plants, or green walls) for building tenants. This may mean an increase in exterior workspaces like terraces, courtyards, atriums, and roofs.- Kendra Locklear Ordia, ASID, IIDA, RID, NCIDQ, LEED AP
“„Since technology allows employees to work anywhere for both focus and collaborative tasks, companies should ask themselves, ‘What makes it worth coming to the office?’- Sara Barnes
“„The answer to that question will give some clues as to where the future of the office is headed.- Sara Barnes
“„A recent Harvard study pointed out the issues of privacy and disruption, but this is only really a concerning issue when the correct support spaces aren’t included in the program, and they almost never are.- Amy Jarvis, AIA
“„Desk space and headcounts are not the way to measure the square footage required for a workplace project these days. Also, there’s no such thing as one-size-fits-all when it comes to finding the ‘Goldilocks ratio’ - the just-right proportions of support space to open space to amenity space.- Amy Jarvis, AIA
“„There needs to be an investment made, before a lease is signed, to gather quantitative data that will help the architects and designers tailor a design solution that best fits not only what the company is today but also what it aspires to be in the future.- Amy Jarvis, AIA
“„The company then needs to take charge and implement a culture that will allow them and their space to work cohesively toward reaching their goals. Change management will play a big role in whether a new office design is perceived well or not.- Amy Jarvis, AIA
“„Employees have to be taught how to use their new workspaces and new work flows, and the company’s managers have to be leading that charge.- Amy Jarvis, AIA
“„With hybrid open offices, often chosen to save money and promote collaboration, a company will be more likely to operate successfully compared to those in a traditional plan where most people are tucked away in offices.- Amy Jarvis, AIA
“„If the appropriate space allocations are not provided when implementing change, the office as we know it tends to fall short. The office can quickly become a sea of benching instead of a dynamic workplace with breakout spaces, phone rooms, and ample meeting space.- Julia Libby, Associate AIA
“„I believe pre-programming and programming phases are crucial to progressive office design. Focusing on the company’s needs and the needs of their employees informs us of the best use of their real estate.- Julia Libby, Associate AIA
“„Implementing observation-based technology such as room booking and occupancy systems can provide useful data to assist designers and their clients in identifying their space needs.- Julia Libby, Associate AIA
“„This is an opportunity to concentrate on the current and future needs of the company both spatially and culturally.- Julia Libby, Associate AIA
“„With this information we can help them make informed decisions to make the open office successful as a workplace and as a business.- Julia Libby, Associate AIA
“„This paradigm shift is already underway, although telecommuting and co-working won’t suit every company’s needs and workflow.- Ashley Dunn, AIA
“„The important thing for every company and their design team to keep in mind is that the workplace should support the organizational needs and mission of the company it will serve.- Ashley Dunn, AIA
“„For companies that encourage employees to work remotely, the office should incorporate sufficient data infrastructure to support the workflow, and probably will emphasize amenities that draw remote workers to the office to collaborate when needed as well as unassigned touchdown workstations for those times when remote employees do need a desk.- Ashley Dunn, AIA
“„The office will become a destination, a place to go to see colleagues, meet face-to-face and collaborate, rather than a sea of open desks where people come, sit, and leave, just to prove they were in attendance for a specified period of time.- Ashley Dunn, AIA
“„With workers spending less time sitting at a designated desk or work area, offices are beginning to replace traditional desk space with touchdown stations and rooms for group work.- Andrew Franz, AIA, LEED AP
“„Expect to see more of these innovative setups for sharing and flexible collaboration.- Andrew Franz, AIA, LEED AP
“„Co-working will continue to gain popularity and should be considered as part of a mobility plan to allow greater flexibility of work environments.- Kendra Locklear Ordia, ASID, IIDA, RID, NCIDQ, LEED AP
“„Incubator spaces can also serve as an internal co-working space for companies looking to connect and collaborate with thought leaders and start-ups. Flexibility in work styles is still important to these environments too.- Kendra Locklear Ordia, ASID, IIDA, RID, NCIDQ, LEED AP
“„As face-to-face encounters occur less frequently as technology develops, those encounters do hold a higher responsibility to build vision, joy, and trust among employees.- Sara Barnes
“„Instead, we are seeing requests for spaces that reflect the culture of an organization and encourage a sense of community for their staff.- Louise Sharp
“„These are the factors that most often drive people to work in an office, as opposed to working remotely. We are seeing a trend emerge with co-working spaces, however.- Louise Sharp
“„This new typology can be used as supplemental space to support both growth or remote office work, often as part of a larger campus solution, and is taking hold in many major cities.- Louise Sharp
“„For most of us, I think the bigger shift is going to be in how we start to define successful companies in the future and what that implies for the physical space.- Amy Jarvis, AIA
“„While we all still use financials to determine a company’s success and value, I think there is a growing need to also investigate the ethics and morality of the companies we choose to support and work for.- Amy Jarvis, AIA
“„People are taking notice of companies that do the right thing and a big part of that is how their employees are treated.- Amy Jarvis, AIA
“„Companies that build spaces that embrace efforts to promote employee wellness will benefit from retaining their talented employees and actually getting more work out of them day to day.- Amy Jarvis, AIA
“„This is done by developing highly tailored design solutions for companies, or even departments within companies, while not throwing the baby out with the bath water when it comes to the open plan.- Amy Jarvis, AIA
“„Office design is in constant evolution and it will never be something that we can stop and say, ‘Okay, we got it; this is the perfect solution for this business and for all business for all time.’- Amy Jarvis, AIA
“„This means executing in-depth programming or pre-programming exercises to determine the amount of time spent in the office and the proper amenities required to support a flexible environment.- Julia Libby, Associate AIA
“„With less space dedicated to traditional offices and workstations, there is more opportunity for conferencing and amenity space.- Julia Libby, Associate AIA
“„The introduction of co-working cannot solely be about a space reduction; it should also be about developing office culture and creating new ways to work and collaborate.- Julia Libby, Associate AIA
“„Other concepts like user-friendly technology, room-booking systems, day lockers, and reliable IT support are also components to consider when designing the office of tomorrow.- Julia Libby, Associate AIA