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The Future Of The Office Is Open

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 Evans
Dec 25, 202368 Shares33796 Views
If the future of the office is open, does it not only refer to literally more open spaces but also for the office layout to be open to new designs?
The open office has come in for a lot of criticism lately, but is it going to disappear to be replaced by some new concept?
“Not so fast,” characterizes the general response of the architects and designers.
That’s not to say office design won’t evolve to accommodate a variety of work styles and functions, from focused to collaborative, and respond to culture and technology changes.
The open-plan office of the future won’t be a one-size-fits-all proposition. Rather, it will be about balance and choices.

Open-Plan Offices

Ashley Dunn, the director of workplace at Dyer Brown & Associates, an architecture firm in Boston, Massachusetts, commented:
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
Dunn, who is a fellow of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), added:
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
She concluded:
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
Andrew Franz, AIA, LEED AP, the principal at Andrew Franz Architect in New York, agreed with Dunn.
He said:
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
Franz, another AIA fellow and a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design - Accredited Professional (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
In her opinion, an open office definitely has a future, but it will continue to evolve, according to Kendra Locklear Ordia, a former associate and senior interior designer at Perkins&Will in Dallas, Texas.
She said:
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
Ordia, who is now an assistant professor of Interior Design at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, continued:
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
She concluded:
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
The open office often gets a bad rap when, in reality, the open office isn’t to blame, observed Sara Barnes, another senior interior designer at Perkins&Will.
She said:
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
Barnes added:
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
She continued:
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
For Louise Sharp, a design principal at HLW International in Los Angeles:
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
Regarding open-plan offices, she remarked about striking a balance:
I think it’s about finding the appropriate balance of openness.- Louise Sharp
Sharp also said:
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
She added:
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
For Julia Libby, Assoc. AIA, a senior designer at Spacesmith in New York, there’s one fact that shouldn’t be overlooked:
The open-office layout is the most efficient way of maximizing square footage per person.- Julia Libby, Associate AIA
Libby added:
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
She continued:
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
Libby underscored again the importance of balance:
I believe the open office will continue to evolve over time, always seeking a balance between these factors.- Julia Libby, Associate AIA
She also thinks that dwelling on the negative aspects of the open office makes it easy to forget the positive attributes.
She said:
The open-office layout is extremely beneficial for collaboration, socialization, learning opportunities, and expressing a flat hierarchy.- Julia Libby, Associate AIA
Open-office design is not set in stone.
Based on her observation, Lynn Brotman, IIDA, NCIDQ, who was an associate principal and interior designer at Svigals + Partners in New Haven, Connecticut, commented:
Like a pendulum, the trend of open offices seems to swing back and forth.- Lynn Brotman, IIDA, NCIDQ
Brotman, who is now retired, also said:
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
She continued:
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
Brotman added:
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
She further said:
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
Brotman concluded:
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

More Than Open-Plan

Beyond the open-plan question, the office as we know it is changing fundamentally.
Dyer Brown’s Dunn said:
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
She added:
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
The office is becoming a more active and less sedentary experience, adapting and changing to meet work needs, according to Andrew Franz.
He remarked:
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
Franz added:
Other techniques for workplaces include creating spatial juxtapositions and multiple circulation pathways.- Andrew Franz, AIA, LEED AP
Perkins&Will’s Kendra Ordia commented:
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
Ordia’s former colleague, Sara Barnes, said:
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
For Barnes:
The answer to that question will give some clues as to where the future of the office is headed.- Sara Barnes
Amy Jarvis, AIA, of Spacesmith cautioned:
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
Jarvis added:
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
She continued:
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
Jarvis likewise said:
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
Regarding the office personnel:
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
Jarvis concluded:
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
Spacesmith’s Julia Libby concurred, saying:
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
For Libby, here are some of the things that should be done:
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
In addition to what she suggested, she also said:
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
Libby continued and said that identifying the right questions is a key first step, adding:
This is an opportunity to concentrate on the current and future needs of the company both spatially and culturally.- Julia Libby, Associate AIA
Finally, she said:
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

Paradigm Shift

Concepts such as remote or co-working will have an impact on what tomorrow’s office looks like.
Dyer Brown’s Ashley Dunn said:
This paradigm shift is already underway, although telecommuting and co-working won’t suit every company’s needs and workflow.- Ashley Dunn, AIA
Then she pointed out what should matter the most:
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
Dunn added:
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
She continued:
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
Andrew Franz of Andrew Franz Architect noted:
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
What will they all lead to? Franz said:
Expect to see more of these innovative setups for sharing and flexible collaboration.- Andrew Franz, AIA, LEED AP
Connection and connectivity are always desired regardless of where work is completed.
Kendra Ordia of Perkins&Will said:
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
Ordia added:
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
Sara Barnes, from the same firm, agreed that despite remote and co-working arrangements, offices are still important.
She said:
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
Technology can be both connective and divisive, and many employers are not sold on remote or co-working.
Louise Sharp of HLW International said:
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
She added:
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
Sharp concluded:
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
While remote and co-working may influence the way employees work, Spacesmith’s Amy Jarvis doesn’t think they will be what drives the biggest changes in the next ten years in terms of office layout.
She remarked:
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
She added:
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
Jarvis also noted that:
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
She elaborated:
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
How to carry it out? Jarvis said:
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
Lastly, she said:
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
At the same time, remote and co-working spaces require much more flexibility and detailed research in workplace design, according to Spacesmith’s Julia Libby.
She said:
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
Libby added:
With less space dedicated to traditional offices and workstations, there is more opportunity for conferencing and amenity space.- Julia Libby, Associate AIA
She also commented about reducing space, saying:
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
Libby concluded:
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
In the final analysis, the open office isn’t going to go away, but it will continue to evolve along flexible lines to mirror the culture and practices of tomorrow’s business environment.

Sometimes Open Plan Is The Only Solution

Kate MacAulay, NCIDQ, an interior designer and project manager at The Architectural Team, Inc. (TAT) in Chelsea, Massachusetts, shared what she thinks about open-plan space. Below are her thoughts:
Open offices are more than just a trend, for a variety of reasons.
For one, open-plan settings allow the kind of flexible programming that clients find crucial in today’s agile workplace culture.
Just as important, greater interest in renovation, repositioning, and conversion projects is driving the creation of new workplaces within historic or landmark properties - in some cases, an open-plan design is the only possible solution for these unique spaces.
For example, TAT recently completed a new headquarters in downtown Rochester, New York, for business incubator NextCorps.
Located on the sixth floor of the historic 1 million-plus-square-foot Sibley Square - a former department store, whose renovation the firm is also leading - the NextCorps space includes a large landmarked “Tea Room,” where the design team was bound by strict historic preservation standards and could not create any new structural elements.
An open-plan design was the best-possible solution.
To create zones of work, lounge, and meeting areas within a space that allowed no new-built elements, the TAT team used:
  • configurable benching workstations
  • freestanding conference pods
  • privacy pods
The NextCorps example demonstrates that when it comes to open offices, designers are compelled to employ innovative and clever means of devising settings that truly function as effective workplaces.
Privacy is often a concern.
Successful strategies include creating visual privacy with custom glazing for conference rooms, specifying high-backed desking and furnishings.
Acoustical privacy was enhanced with a number of design features, including:
a. an applied acoustical wall-panel product in the Media Room
b. partitions with high acoustic ratings that separate key uses, such as the:
  • lab equipment room
  • adjacent office suite
For many employers and organizations, the concept of an office - a place where people come together to work - is even more important in today’s world.
Designing workplaces that facilitate collaboration and provide shared access to resources is crucial.
In fact, this need was a primary driver for the NextCorps organization’s move to a large, 48,000-sq.-ft. space in downtown Rochester. Previously, the NextCorps leadership and administrators worked in an office park on the outskirts of the city.
Moving their headquarters and incubator spaces into a single, dedicated facility allows the organization’s leaders to be in the same space as the entrepreneurs whose work NextCorps supports.
Bringing everyone under the same roof enables NextCorps to better attract entrepreneur tenants.
The new space is purpose-built to foster interaction and enhance collaboration, providing high-tech entrepreneurs better access to the tools they need to grow their businesses:
  • lab and maker spaces
  • meeting areas
  • auditoriums for events
  • dedicated space for onsite mentoring
  • exclusive spaces for legal, financial, accounting, networking, business-plan development, and marketing services
Similarly, designing a successful workplace also means designing for choice.
So, employees or tenants have access to a variety of spaces that suit different work needs and styles.
At NextCorps, incubator tenants have a variety of workspaces to choose from, depending on their needs and the size of their business. This ranges from:
  • open-plan workspace
  • individual private offices
  • private office suites (small, medium, and large)
  • private wet labs
From a design perspective, the emphasis on increased choice in the workplace also leads design and development teams to include more and better tenant-focused amenity spaces.
In many of our workplace and interiors projects, we’re integrating more social spaces for:
  • down time
  • creating community
  • encouraging socialization
  • casual collaboration
For example, some of the linchpin elements of the NextCorps program include:
  • an outdoor roof deck
  • open kitchen and café spaces
  • game areas with pool and ping-pong tables
Another trending discussion in workplace design is the need for more:
  • family space
  • children’s play areas
  • lactation rooms
  • sleep rooms
The rise in remote working, co-working, and freelancing will definitely impact the look of office space - and not just in commercial workplace settings.
On the one hand, traditional office spaces will have to become more flexible and adaptable as the workforce itself becomes more flexible.
At NextCorps, for instance, incubator tenants set their own work policies, and the tenant mix will change over time.
TAT’s design solution accounts for this with easily reconfigurable bench workstations, flooring, and lighting patterns that are not tied to specific layouts, and a neutral color palette that creates a basic level of visual unity, making it easier to alter specific elements as needs evolve and shift.
On the other hand, tomorrow’s office will also continue to extend outside the boundaries of commercial settings and will be incorporated, for example, into multifamily residential communities.
The Architectural Team is seeing this in a number of the firm’s recent multifamily projects.
A good case study is Alexan 3 North, a 178-unit, three-building development in a suburban setting about 30 minutes outside Boston.
In addition to more traditional amenity spaces (e.g., shared kitchen, fitness center, and game room), key elements of TAT’s interior design program also included areas specifically designed for people working at home:
  • reservable conference rooms
  • open benching systems
  • privacy booths
TAT’s recent projects for AvalonBay Communities in Sudbury, Massachusetts, include a similar set of work-focused amenities.
When the future of the office is open, productivity and well-being can be elevated, which, in turn, will delightfully redefine the modern workplace.
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