By Build in Brief - The B1M
April 13, 2021
This video focuses on the pandemic, starting in 2020, and the home office. It mentions that for some companies it actually enforced the importance of the office space for things like creativity, knowledge sharing and collaboration. It is still critical for creativity to have that face-to-face interaction and building of trust between team members. This video states that remote working over the last few years has advanced trends that the younger generations had already figured out in terms of where and how we work, the hours we work, what we want from the workplace and how trust is developed amongst co-workers. While the socially distanced desks and spaces may remain, this video will show us new and updated concepts for an office after the pandemic.
"A room, set of rooms, or building used as a place for commercial, professional or bureaucratic work" - This is the definition of an office. However, there is more to it than that and all of those things have to come together to make a powerful work environment.
Location is a major contributing factor - you have to be in a place your best workers want to be. By being in an area surrounded with other strong businesses can in turn attract future talents and enable access to information and technology.
Your office must have appeal - workers should be wanting to go to work. It should have areas where they can relax and grab a coffee or meet up with other workers and collaborate on different projects. Even before the pandemic and social distancing, most of us needed different atmospheres to do different actions. The video states the best offices are somewhere between a coffee lounge and stylish home. 2020 also completely irradicated the idea that people are only doing work when they are physically at work – especially creative jobs. It’s become known that everyone is more productive at different times and does their tasks at different times in the day.
The wellbeing of an organization’s employees should be at the forefront of any business. They are the organizations greatest assets after all. Think how we can give them access to natural lighting and vitamin D, which helps with mental balance. The video suggests more windows than walls and to avoid building internal rooms. Atriums have become all the hype! They also recommend indoor greenery to promote mindfulness and improve air quality. Since the pandemic has introduced social distancing, some architects have worked out ways to do this with existing spaces, while others have come up with completely new concepts to achieve this.
If the pandemic has taught us anything, it is that the need to build in the concept of flexibility is crucial. This is to say that structural frames should be built so that later they can be reconfigured easily if needed. The video also pointed out that due to the pandemic, it is predicted that there will be a move from high-rise buildings to lower rise whenever possible. It does however mention two high rise buildings that have adapted this new concept well – Sydney’s Quay Quarter and San Francisco’s Salesforce Tower.
The video concludes by saying that even with all the uncertainties of the past 2 years, the office is far from dead. That through this time it has created new breeds of working environments to further promote modern cultures and psychology.
I believe this article relates to many workplaces during this time. Many have struggled with the re-organization of their office space after the pandemic and all the safety measures needed. Social distancing has made some office spaces only functional for half the team members it used to hold. This video had some great visuals and suggestions on how to combat this. It also offered suggestions on how to improve the office for employees coming back to the office and now finding they need or want a different working environment.
I found this video really informative and the visuals really had me entranced. I have never seen any offices like some of the ones they showed. I love the analogy of people wanting an office that is a cross between a coffee lounge and a stylish home. This statement rung true for me. The offices depicted in the video made me want to go there and hang out for the day. It's like seeing fancy universities from around the world - who doesn't want to study in a castle looking building like in the UK!
Build In Brief - The B1M. (2021). How to Build an Office: Post-Pandemic. YouTube. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/BOV5uj_Ihl4.
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