An Exploration of Office Design: Understanding the character of our workplaces

Abstract

The workplace environment is intrinsically dynamic, yet architecturally it is treated as something that is fixed. Functional layouts specific to the thinking of the time (zeitgeist) are built into the structure leaving little opportunity for adaptation. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Johnson Wax building is one such example; built to function in the Taylorist paradigm with little scope for alteration. The contemporary workplace often lends itself to the adaptive reuse of a range of building typologies or the construction of new structures with Green Star ratings. At the same time, a significant amount of office buildings, constructed prior to the green building movement of the 1990’s, are still in use, despite the typically hermetic and unhealthy spaces they contain. The possibility of adapting an office building from pre-1990 building stock is investigated. Previous workplace layouts inhibited conversation (since interaction in the workplace was frowned upon), but today workplaces are designed with social interaction as its core. The largely unused potential of this aspect within corporate culture and the influence it might have on spatial organisations is investigated. Interior architecture, as mediator between office buildings’ accommodation and their dynamic programs, forms the premise of the study. The hypothesis that an interior architectural intervention can make a positive translation from an unhealthy to a healthy building is tested by designing for the interplay between the character of a space and its design elements. The design process is guided by the Open Building methodology of fixed, semi-fixed and loose-fit. The intervention translates this methodology into a responsive and context conscious proposal with an emphasis on the users and their sense of place. Finally, traditional architectural elements are reinterpreted in terms of their ability to enable or disable interaction between users according to the theory of social friction. Three types of interaction are considered: official meetings, casual meetings and chance encounters. Human interaction, central to the creation of a workplace as opposed to a work space, is a constant theme throughout the study.