What has no internal walls, height-adjustable desks, floor-to-ceiling whiteboards, the latest in video communications technology - and a great view of Mount Fuji on a clear day?

This is #WhereIWork! When Rakuten headquarters relocated last year to a new building in Setagaya, Tokyo, we did more than change our address. We changed everything about our office and the way we work in it every day. For example, instead of a traditional CEO office, with doors and waiting rooms, my own new workspace just flows into everyone else's. We did away with all of the traditional offices. And to encourage communication and collaboration, there are no internal walls between workstations.

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Metropolis publisher and editor in chief Susan S. Szenasy moderated State of Design: Where We Work, a panel discussion hosted by Meadows Office Interiors in their Manhattan showroom. The panel featured Tom Krizmanic, principal of STUDIOS Architecture; Simon Speak, business development director of Haworth, Inc.; and Gabrielle Rubin Deveaux, senior director of real estate at BuzzFeed. The group discussed the challenges and benefits of creating age-neutral office spaces for today’s employees.

The group acknowledged that some older workers are resistant to drastic changes in the traditional work environment: the key is to try and balance individual concerns with the needs of the business. Said Krizmanic, “You look at the decisions through the lens of what the organization is trying to do so that everybody, from the youngest person to the oldest person, should be on board with that, and then peel off the slight variations that may make the acceptance of the design more palatable.”  

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Lack of private space in office interiors is constraining the creativity and productivity of workers, according to data from two new UK workplace surveys. Gensler's 2016 UK Workplace Survey found that workers were more likely to be innovative if they had access to a range of spaces supporting different working styles, including private, semi-private and open-plan environments.

Read the article on dezeen.com >

In America at least, the great symbol of corporate conformity is the office cubicle. Satirised in the Dilbert cartoons and a staple in any movie about the degrading aspects of modern working life, the cubicle provides a perfect shorthand way of portraying an individual crushed by the corporate jackboot. Yet what these things miss is the propensity of people to personalise their surroundings and claim a space as their own, even if only for the short time they may be there. This seems to be particularly the case when it comes to office design and so we were much taken with this blog which lists the most far out and quirky ways people in the US have found to personalise their cubicles. Of course the need and urge to personalise space are not limited to the US. We often find in the course of our own installations that the first thing people do when they occupy an office for the first time is to personalise their space.

Read the article on workplaceinsight.net >