After exploring planning strategies and design details to promote a safe office environment, what does the future office look like and why do we need it? Where are we headed in shifting the role of the office post pandemic?
SPECIAL OCCASION
The office will be a special destination for workers, not necessarily a daily occurrence. More and better social spaces will be vital as remote work increases.
The office will provide contrast to our work-from-home settings. People will go to the office for the things that cannot be had at home, such as social contact, libraries, archives, technology, and networks.
The office will skew more heavily toward collaborative spaces and become less focused on individual work which can be done at home. There will need to be a high number and variety of meeting spaces outfitted with technology.
The office is about group identity, with a goal to recharge the staff and communicate a company’s mission and values to employees, new recruits, clients, and visitors. The design of the office should embody the ethos of the organization.
We know that COVID-19 has dramatically changed the way we use the office in a short amount of time. The needs of office users will continue to change over time. The office should be flexible to accommodate those changing needs. Offices may take on characteristics common of event spaces, with growing or shrinking rooms of different scales, rather than being stagnant and only used for a singular purpose.
