08 - Workplaces by Weston Williamson + Partners

Mobile technology is driving huge changes in the workplace and creating new challenges and opportunities for designers. To justify their very existence, office buildings have to offer more than ever before, from myriad workplace settings to collaboration-friendly environments that are far greater than the sum of their parts.

This essay by Pamela Buxton, freelance architecture and design journalist, was written following a series of conversations with WestonWilliamson+Partners. It is one in a series marking the 30th anniversary of the practice in 2015.

1. Workers in a San Francisco Starbucks cafe at the turn of the millennium working on their laptops.

2. 17th century interior of a London coffee house- the original ‘Coffice’.

2

W

here would you rather work in your office? At a special standing desk that doubles as a treadmill? At a shared bench table in the office kitchen, surrounded by munching colleagues? Or in an acoustically sealed pod for ultimate privacy?

These, as well as many rather more conventional desk options, are among the increasing variety of settings now being provided in some cutting-edge offices.

Today’s offices are all about choice, informality, sociability and, increasingly, that all-important serendipitous encounter that just might foster fruitful discussion and collaboration. Workplace culture is changing rapidly, not just in the creative sectors that have long had a ping pong table in the office and pioneered more informal working environments, but in more traditional sectors such as law and science.

Informality seems to be here to stay. Now, no one bats an eyelid when colleagues huddle for an impromptu Skype conversation in the middle of the office, or when others put on their headphones and head off into their own little office audio bubble without leaving their chair. Hotdesking now seems a rather quaint concept when the real fluidity of location is rather more fundamental – it’s not a matter of where you work in the office but whether you work in the office at all, and, if not, where?

The ‘Coffice’ As mobile technology challenges the very nature of permanent offices, these are stimulating times for workplace design. When many staff can do their jobs anywhere, offices have to work harder to justify their extent (if not their very existence). What can a permanent base offer that working from home, a café, or a collaborative workspace cannot?

And how can designers and architects create an environment that maximises and facilitates the benefits of a communal workplace for employers and employees alike?

I remember visiting San Francisco at the turn of the millennium and seeing for myself the then new phenomenon of the ‘coffice’, as workers sat in cafés working away on their laptops. It seems strange to think how novel that once seemed. But the nature and location of workplaces have always been evolving, and even what seem to be relatively new concepts – e.g. working from home and working from cafés – are anything but that.

Most accounts of the history of office typology begin with references to the original coffice – the Lloyd’s coffee house of the 17th century, which combined a pleasant ambience with sociability, networking and access to news and information for its merchant customers, who generally lived above their businesses. So how did we get from this early creative workspace, via deep-plan cellular white-collar factories, to the coffices of today?

The corporate office interior For the conventional modern-day office, a more useful historical reference is the birth of the North American office type, with its highly regimented organisation of mechanised office workers in high rises, made possible by technological advances in steel-framed construction, lifts, and curtain walling. As workplace design expert Frank Duffy points out in his book Work and The City,1 these were a by-product of Taylorism – the ‘scientific management’ strategy invented by Frederick Taylor in the early 20th century. While factory workers stood at the assembly line, these workers toiled away at noisy typewriters, calculating machines and, later, computers, fax machines and printers. Everything was rigorously organised in the interest of efficiency.

The early 20th century also saw the beginnings of the notion of the corporate office interior. In his lively workplace history Cubed,2 author Nikil Saval cites Frank Lloyd Wright’s Larkin Building, 1903, in Buffalo, New York, as an early ‘total office environment’ that served as an advertisement for its company. It was rigorously organised yet full of natural light, with galvanising buzzwords on the walls and progressive staff facilities such as a Young Woman’s Christian Association, library, garden and more.

Emergence of open plan A variation on the notion of a seemingly endless sea of regimented desks within an open-plan environment was that of an array of workplace cubicles, which had become commonplace in large offices by the 1970s. While these provided privacy, the flipside of the coin was the alienation felt within the windowless, soulless cubicles – lampooned in films such as Jacques Tati’s Playtime3 – with their so-near-but-yet-so-far relationship to social interaction. An altogether more amenable take on the cubicle was explored in Herman Miller’s progressive Action Office,4 conceived as a semi-enclosed workstation that combined various working setting options including a standing desk. Despite such innovations, the cubicle concept persisted within office interiors, though the size of the cubicles shrank by between 25%

4

3. Rigorously organised yet full of natural lightLarkin Building, Buffalo

by Frank Lloyd Wright (1903).

4+5. Action Office by Herman Miller (1964) included innovative workstations that combined various working settings and a standing desk.

6

and 50% between the mid-’80s and ’90s, says Saval.5 But it wouldn’t be long before dot-commers were rewriting the office design script from scratch.

While Taylorist offices had dominated in the US, in northern Europe an alternative model – known as Bürolandschaft (office landscape) – had evolved in the post-war years, which was devised by the Hamburgbased Quickborner space-planning consulting group. In this open-plan arrangement, serried desking gave way to varied desk arrangements – meticulously planned according to activity and with no boxed-in cellular rooms. Flexibility was key, which endeared it to company bosses. But, by the 1960s and ’70s, Bürolandschaft had become unpopular with workers, who disliked the noisy environment and were able to express their feelings via the worker representation (which was mandatory in many northern European countries) on company boards.

Soon, an alternative approach to office design was afoot – one termed

by Duffy as “social democratic” 6 on the basis that all office workers were entitled to the same environmental benefits, such as fresh air, privacy and sunlight. This was exemplified by Norwegian architect Niels Torp’s SAS airline HQ in Stockholm, 1987, and in the UK by the practice’s HQ for British Airways at Heathrow in 1998. Both are organised around an internal ‘street’. With its provision of spaces for chance encounters and socialising, it bore no resemblance to dismal internal corridors and could be seen as prefiguring the more recent increased emphasis on using circulation as a key part of the workplace environment.

Advancement of technology While changes to a more sociable/diverse workplace may have already been under way, there’s no doubt that mobile technology was the real game-changer, and that those changes are still playing out today.

After all, with offices themselves arising partly out of the existence of the paperwork that accompanied industrialisation, the digital era can’t help but disrupt the fundamentals of the office concept. Not only do mobile devices challenge the need for co-workers to be colocated, but also for them to be doing their work at the same time. And when the certainties of time and location – those two bedrocks of the physical workplace – are removed from the picture, nothing can be taken for granted. It has been, says Duffy, a “seismic” 7 shift, and one that is fuelled by – and is perhaps fuelling – the rise in freelance rather than permanent workers. With conventional offices being “neither a stable or sustainable building type”, Duffy instead champions what he describes as the “networked offices” 8 that transcend conventional

architectural boundaries and embrace new relationships of work with regard to time and place.

The impact of mobile technology has led to both a change in the variety of locations for work and, where conventional office bases persist, a shift in how these are designed. Both reflect a common desire for nonsolitary working environments, such as cafés, even when the individual may be working on their own. Nor is it just about cafés/coffices. When the Ace Hotel London 9 opened in Shoreditch, its extensive lobby areas included long bench tables for working, which were provided not just for its guests but for anyone who fancied dropping in and setting up their own working environment in the lobby for the morning. The result is a buzzy atmosphere that fits well with the Ace ethos.

Collaborative working spaces such as Impact Hub Westminster 10 show a different financial model of a workspace from that of traditional leases, where the renting of desk space can be measured in weeks, days and even hours rather than the conventional leasing scenario that locks tenants in for years. This more agile, flexible working is particularly appropriate for start-ups and small businesses.

Variety of workplace settings The design of more customary offices for employers and employees has also evolved rapidly in the last 20 years with the emergence of more informal working environments that offer a variety of settings for different working needs, whether for interaction, collaboration or concentration – for example, acoustic booths for private phone calls, a quiet space for working, or a kitchen-style table that can serve variously for lunch, team working, informal meetings and events.

Workplace designers talk of facilitating visibility, networking and collaboration, and creating settings compatible with mobile technologydriven agile working methods. Flexibility and connectivity are key, as well as the provision of ‘soft’ spaces and amenities. Duffy 11 reports an increase in the proportion of collective space (as opposed to working space) of approximately 10% to 40% in the last half century or so.

8

6. Diagram showing the development of workplace settings.

7. Pop-up working environment creating a buzzy atmosphere at the Ace Hotel, Shoreditch (2013).

10

And while the more eclectic nature of the office is superficially closer to Bßrolandschaft than Taylorist approaches to office design, the whole setup is nonetheless devised to increase workplace efficiency. Low levels of desk occupancy had long been rife in conventional offices – research found that more than half of desks are empty at any one time in working hours.12 But it took mobile technology to enable traditional notions of a permanent desk for every worker to be challenged in earnest.

The blurring of home/work environments and working/not-working states has driven another workplace trend for more domestic-style furniture, from the oversized kitchen table to the use of easy chairs and sofas in breakout areas, and in the provision of amenities such as cycle storage, showers and kitchens/cafĂŠs.

Not that this is a complete bolt out of the blue. Saval 13 points out how Florence Knoll, back in the middle of the last century, was exploring more domestic approaches to US office design as she carved out a role for herself as a (then novel) office interior designer, giving a more human expression to the modern office environments.

Vertical or horizontal?

It’s common for today’s workplace designers to talk about how they strive to encourage serendipitous meetings through the design of circulation routes that are deliberately prominent and generous. Rather than closed lifts, staff may be encouraged to use prominent feature staircases with views across the floorplates. Spaces for pausing and chatting or sitting down for longer discussions may be incorporated in either horizontal or vertical circulation. It’s all about openness and views across the space, rather than closed-off ‘silos’ of different departments. Nor are such approaches restricted to companies in the creative and technology sector. They are increasingly being found in science workplaces such as laboratories, including both the Sainsbury Laboratory at the University of Cambridge 14 and the Francis Crick Institute 15 at King’s Cross.

This is not only the case within individual workspaces, but within multi-occupancy offices. At the Social Justice Centre in Vauxhall,16 the clustering of a variety of organisations in this sector can lead to advantageous meetings within the communal social areas. Incubator business centres on science parks increasingly encourage visibility and interaction. The Alphabeta Building 17 at Finsbury Square in London is one of many large multi-occupancy buildings where the generous communal facilities are an ever more significant selling point.

Weston Williamson has experienced for itself how different workplace environments can affect working cultures. When it moved from a vertical studio of four small, stacked floorplates to its current twofloor workspace at Valentine Place in Southwark, it really reaped the benefits of horizontal working, says partner Philip Breese. This was accompanied by a conscious decision to provide clear sightlines across the spaces and encourage sociability through the use of elements such as a large, prominent kitchen/bar/events space.

Passive exposure to other projects in the office can also be a positive.

12

8. Tanner Street studio designed by WW+P (1999) comprising stacked floorplates arranged around distinctive vertical circulation.

09. WW+P purpose built Tanner Street studio with open plan interior, floor to ceiling glazing and exposed concrete soffits.

10. WW+P Valentine Place studio, London (2014) with large floorplates that encourage horizontal working.

14

16

11+12. WW+P Chapter Lewisham, Thurston Road (2016) drop-in ground floor workspace.

13+14. Baskerville House, Birmingham (2017): WW+P created new forms of workplace design to drive an agile cultural shift for Network Rail.

18

15+16. WW+P Talgarth Road

15. WW+P Science City, Giza, Egypt (2016): workplace environments are designed to enhance wellbeing through lateral interaction between office and laboratory workers.

20

The practice had the opportunity to develop these ideas further in its recent 8000m2 fit-out for Network Rail’s headquarters in Birmingham, which brought together 900 staff from disparate offices within three floors of the Grade II listed Baskerville House. Here, new forms of workplace design were used to drive a cultural shift in the company.

Weston Williamson created a range of workplace settings suitable for both more agile working practices and the particular needs of specialist teams, such as the infrastructure project designers. It’s the opposite of a ‘one size fits all’ approach. Settings include private acoustic pods, phone booths, alcove sofas, high-spec bookable meeting rooms and a learning academy. A key part is the deli eating and working area and adjacent breakout zone within the centre of the second floor. With an eye on sustainability, demountable furniture such as the acoustic meeting pods can be disassembled and relocated at other sites if necessary.

Importance of wellness Weston Williamson is hoping to develop its workplace thinking further through Science City, a knowledge-sharing centre for science and technology planned in Giza, Egypt. The 85,000m2 (GIA) project was won last year following an international competition and is perhaps a nod to the internal ‘street’ concept successfully used before by the practice at the New England Biolabs in Massachusetts, USA, in 2005.

Here, a series of slots (or linear streets) was cut into the building form, affording lateral interaction for a variety of workplace environments and encouraging knowledge sharing and social interaction among office and laboratory workers.

The practice’s general approach to office design is to provide an environment where the people, rather than the furnishings, can shine, says Breese.

“We’re trying to create a relatively neutral canvas where people and their activities are the main players in the space”, he says.

Looking ahead, he expects workplaces to increasingly demonstrate more agility, more variety, and more emphasis on ‘wellness’, with greater use of natural light and plants, for example, as well as a range of acoustic environments. Getting the workplace environment right is increasingly important for businesses’ ability to attract and retain staff.

“These things are so important now. It’s about bringing some of the home comforts into the workplace to encourage people to feel happier in that environment… People are more mobile. They’ll go to wherever suits them. So businesses need to compete with each other to attract the best talent”, he says.

So what next? Rather than the creation of an army of home-based workers as might have been anticipated when mobile technology first emerged, the answer – at least for those in urban areas – seems to be found in the city itself. In Work and the City, Duffy 18 anticipated the development of more mixed-use buildings rather than office ghettos, as well as opportunities for the more interconnected use of spatial resources, and more flexible uses and complementary mixes of different types of space. Co-work spaces could, for example, be incorporated into various settings such as residential developments, or maybe transport hubs such as stations.

16. WW+P New England Biolabs, Massachusetts (2005): the internal ‘street’ concept encourages social interaction and chance meetings for all users of the building.

22

17. Face-to-face, real-time, real-space working environments remain fundamental to counteract screen obsessed lifestyles.

24

The nomadic, co-working and coffice workplaces are surely here to stay and will most likely proliferate as economic changes create more self-employed workers. Maybe one day we’ll even be working on the road as driverless vehicles are widely adopted. More low-skilled office jobs may be lost to automation and robots, leaving workplaces to provide stimulating environments for more creative knowledge workers. There will surely always be a place for face-to-face, realtime, real-space working environments to counteract our screenobsessed lifestyles. So, while it’s not time yet to write the obituary of the office building type, the design of the workplaces of the future and their city settings will need to be even more finely tuned than ever to justify their existence.

26

18. WW+P Olive Morris House, Brixton (2008): a contemporary combined workplace and customer service centre for Lambeth Council significantly improved customer and employee satisfaction.

Picture Credits: 1. © Anonymous Starbucks office photo 2. © Anonymous Interior of a London Coffee House,1668 via Wikimedia Commons 3. © (Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation) 4. © Herman Miller archives 5. © George Nelson from the Herman Miller archives 6. © WestonWilliamson+Partners 7. © 2017 Universal Design Studio 8. © Haime and Butler 9. © Haime and Butler 10. © Nick Guttridge 11. © Nick Guttridge 12. © WestonWilliamson+Partners 13. © Agnese Sanvito 14. © Agnese Sanvito 15. © WestonWilliamson+Partners 16. © Richard Mandelkorn 17. © Alex Lawrence 18. © Tim Crocker

Text References: Work and the City, p33-34, Frank Duffy, Black Dog Publishing, 2008.

Cubed A Secret History of the Workplace, p 67, Nikil Saval, Vintage, 2015.

3 Jacques Tati’s Playtime, 1967. In this film, seen as anticipating the rise of office cubicles, the protagonist M. Hulot gets lost in an ultra modern Paris workplace filled with a maze of identical cubicles.

4 Developed by Robert Propst for Herman Miller from 1964-8.

5 Cubed A Secret History of the Workplace, p243, Nikil Saval, Vintage, 2015.

6 Work and the City, p35-7, Frank Duffy, Black Dog Publishing, 2008.

7 Work and the City, p16-7, Frank Duffy, Black Dog Publishing, 2008.

8 Work and the City, p55, Frank Duffy, Black Dog Publishing, 2008.

9 Ace hotel opened on Shoreditch High Street in London designed by Universal Design Studio and EPR Architects.

10 Launched in 2011 in the first floor of New Zealand House on London’s Haymarket, Impact Hub Westminster is now part of a global network of locally owned collaborative working spaces.

11 Work and the City, p47, Frank Duffy, Black Dog Publishing, 2008.

12 Work and the City, p12-3, Frank Duffy, Black Dog Publishing, 2008.

13 Cubed A Secret History of the Workplace, p 148-9, Nikil Saval, Vintage, 2015.

14 Sainsbury Laboratory, designed by Stanton Williams for the University of Cambridge, was conceived as a stimulating environment for innovative research and collaboration and was awarded the 2012 Stirling Prize.

15 Francis Crick Institute, a biomedical research centre, was designed by HOK and PLP Architecture and opened in 2016 at London’s King’s Cross.

16 Social Justice Centre, designed by Architecture00, provides flexible workspace for organisations working in social justice and human rights. It won RIBA London Building of the Year in 2015.

17 Alphabeta Building, designed by Studio RHE, features a cycle ramp in the main atrium.

18 Work and the City, p63-6, Frank Duffy, Black Dog Publishing, 2008.

1 2