I enjoy reading about the office of the future. Lately, many articles I’ve read describe an office made up of a variety of purpose driven activity “settings” that give workers choices of how and where to work. This office description is the definition of an activity-based workplace or ABW. This is not a new idea. In fact, purpose driven spaces and workstations can be traced back to the mid to late 1960’s.
Current articles about ABW applications relate mainly to conventional corporate offices. The concept can work well where personnel and tasks are well defined. Can activity based workplace concepts be translated into future shared workplace centers? How would they be applied?
One application is the shift from large centralized corporate offices to smaller facilities. This will result in many corporates establishing satellites by relocating work groups in shared workplace centers. Centers will support this personnel shift by adopting and translating activity-based workplace concepts and services that are similar to those used by their corporate clients. The objective will be to provide near-seamless shared working environments for relocated satellite workers. The activity-based application, however, will need to be more generalized to accommodate the broad range of companies and individuals using the center.
Another application concerns home office workers. One result of the Covid-19 pandemic is a big increase in this group. According to a recent poll conducted for Cisco, 90% of the responders said they would not return to their corporate offices full time. Twelve percent said they would never return to their corporate office. Future shared workplace centers will become important factors that will support this workplace change. They will have to be designed with activity-based workplace settings that augment the missing elements of the home office. Centers will provide social interaction along with collaborative and community opportunities. The shared workplace environment will have less distractions with the availability of various types of private, team, and specialized meeting spaces. They will provide additional support with augmenting services and sophisticated technology that may be either unavailable or too expensive for home offices.
Activity based design and augmenting capabilities will be ineffective unless shared workplace centers can continually adapt and support future purpose driven functions. This will be particularly important in the rapidly expanding field of communication technology. One example of a new workspace is a hologram studio that can produce three dimensional virtual meetings. A new technology company, ARHT Media, has launched HoloPod. It is a fast set up, plug and play hologram system suitable for shared workplace center applications. Other examples of emerging technology are multi-person podcast studios, 3D printing, and artificial intelligence applications.
In addition to adaptation, future shared workplace centers will need to lead with new spacial features that go beyond current center space plans. One example is the “Neighborhood Suite”. This element was originally described in our December 16, 2020 blog. Neighborhood suites will average 1500 useable square feet. They will be built to independent enterprise-type clients’ specifications. Neighborhood suites will provide identity, individuality and privacy. They will also have access to the added benefits of the shared workplace center’s common activity-based workplaces, services, technologies and more.
The Covid-19 pandemic has propelled officing concepts into a new reality. New relationships between conventional corporate offices and shared workplace centers are evolving as both facilities continue to change. Future centers will have to be designed, as always, to support a broad range of differing clientele. Activity-based workplace planning, generational work habits, new technologies, and wellness and market factors will require shared workplace centers to be continually open to new ideas. Agility and flexibility will be key factors in extending a facility’s useable life, relevance, and importance. This will dictate construction methods that employ prefabricated, modular, reusable construction methods. These methods will reduce construction time and cost. Delivery time will also be reduced. This will further support a key requirement of rapid reaction to client demands.
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