Workplace As a Response to the Historical and Social Evolution
Written by: Cristina Navas Pacheco
Exploring the history of workplace architecture and design is essential for arriving to the best possible “future of work” or the “new normal”. What types of working practices should business leader implement in the post-pandemic brand new world in order to boost organizational agility for the work force at all levels of company, and introduce the corporate culture of agile working and new relations patterns among co-workers? What types of work environment and work conditions do the former office workers expect? How can business leaders support agile teams in achieving the optimal work life balance, while sustaining high level of work ethics at the same time? Let’s take a walk through the evolution of social and working patterns, defining the changes in workplace design.
Industry 4.0, Knowledge Workers and Agile Working Concept
It is interesting to look at the evolutionary path of the SXX to contextualize that #CHANGES IN THE WAYS OF WORKING, and in the way of conceiving and designing workplaces, do not respond to fashions or trends (superficial concept) but to the close relationship between demand at a specific moment in history and its socio-economic context.
With a very quick brushstroke, we can understand the constant evolution of the architecture of the workspace, from the so-called first industrial revolution to the fourth, better known as the #DIGITAL REVOLUTION, which marked the start of Industry 4.0 era.
As if it were a simple sequence, the worker has also evolved in his role from # PRODUCTION worker or task worker (1800-1950 approx.) To # INFORMATION worker (1950- 2000 approx.) Towards the role of # KNOWLEDGE WORKER (2020- future), or for some, # learning worker. Whichever term to be picked – all of them imply boost of organizational agility and gradual evolution towards agile working methods.
“It is not true that we have entered the age of knowledge. We have entered the age of learning. If we do not learn continuously, we will be absolutely marginalized.” Opinion of the philosopher, essayist , pedagogue, researcher, José Antonio Marina, in “The learning of creativity”.
From “Traditionalists” to “Pandemial Generation” and Post-Pandemic Workplace
If that were not enough, we are victims of our own need to label and classify everything. We can add, which also responds to another increasingly evident social evolution, the social and active profile of the people themselves: Traditionalist (1928-1946); Baby Boomer (1946-1964), Generation X (1964-1980), Millenial or Generation Y (1980-2000), Post-Millenial or Generation Z and Generation Alpha (2000 – present) … (Without pretending to be a detailed and exhaustive classification, because the years are not always conclusive for each of the stages, and I would not want to generate an existential crisis … myself, I have doubts about my belonging to the Generation X group … or am I already part of the consecrated millennial community?)
In any case, without questioning the maxim, the evolution and change of the profiles, needs and demands of these people when claiming their #LIFE MODEL and also the #WORK MODEL.
We begin, now, to talk about the Pandemial Generation, also referred to as Pandemials, (Post COVID-19), it is not official, but as a trend I give it validity, as well as the relevance that it entails. It is difficult to continue defending the position that “everything will be as it was before once the storm passes.”
Let us now go the architectural route, on which I could expound in detail due to professional deformation, but of which I want to emphasize again the evolutionary interest.
Urbanization and Industrial Revolution
We begin our journey through the 19th century, focused on a transition from the “labor market” related to handicraft tasks towards the beginning of the migration to the cities and growing urbanization, and appearance of the first factories, where the rights of the worker are far from the conception that we may have today.
The arrival of the Industrial Revolution contributed to the currents marked in the years 1878 by Taylorism (1856-1925), with the idea of Scientific Management, followed almost concurrently by Fordism (1863-1947). The management theory or management based on work process analysis, was the way to go from the artisanal production of goods to mass production, trying to increase the efficiency and productivity of the employees in assembly lines. Thus, a manufacturing system was implemented, designed to create standardized goods at low cost, determining the manufacturing times of the objects and providing the space and the necessary means of work for the workers to carry out their tasks in the most efficient way possible. Yes, workers being considered as machines, as always.
Concepts of Headquarters, Corporate Culture and Openspace
The appearance of the #CONCEPT OF HEADQUARTERS for some large companies was another relevant factor, and renowned architectural examples contributed the idea of #CORPORATE CULTURE (something so fashionable today, and which finds reference examples around the 1900s). An example of this time are works such as “Larkin Soap Company Building”, in Buffalo, NY, USA, 1993; from the renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright. This project involved a great investment in an innovative and well-designed building, which sought to value the position of the worker and the link with the company through the architectural quality of the space itself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larkin_Company#/media/File:LarkinAdministrationBuilding1906.jpg
Another great gem, the “Johnson Wax Building”, in Racine, Wisconsin, USA, 1936-39; from F.L.W. himself, took a step further in its original approach, where the company wanted the design project to interpret the idea of the American dream, where the worker is happy in his position, feels fulfilled professionally and personally, and people relate to each other, enhancing the feeling of unity, equality and a great family. (Very topical terms in such a distant context, which make us refer to the origin of space, as an excuse, for that corporatist feeling.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson_Wax_Headquarters#/media/File:Johnsonwax01.jpg
It is precisely the next link in the journey that leads us to the concept of “Corporate Architecture of the 50’s”, where functional elements such as the massive use of fluorescent light, air conditioning and the telephone, generate the occupation of large homogeneous spaces that make up the portfolios of global offices of large multinational companies. It is this artificial light that allows it to occupy deeper floors, thus recalling the origin of the #OPENSPACE concept.
In counterpoint to this trend but coexisting, from Germany, appears “Burolandschaft of the 60’s”, a much more organic, natural way, with human scale and dynamics of designing the workspaces, also known as the Office as landscape. This movement wanted to go beyond conventional forms and defended an office where participation and #HUMANISM reigned in front of the hierarchy of its predecessors.
Action Office and First Reference to Flexible Workspace
The 60s and 70s brought new perspectives on a different scale, giving prominence to furniture as a key design piece for office spaces: the “Action Office”. In reality, it was not just the design of a piece of furniture or a set of them, it was a proposal for a new space, linked to movement rather than place. This series of furniture designed by Robert Probst for Herman Miller was based on different complementary pieces, which gave the workspace the flexibility necessary to perform different tasks, and the constant possibility of reconfiguring itself to be adapted to the needs of the employees. We could say that for the first time in history a concept of #FLEXWORK is introduced. The evolution continues towards the “Action Office II” where George Nelson gathers the ideas of his predecessor Probst, and develops an adaptable modular system that generates spaces where the worker reaches a higher level of privacy and a capacity to limit and define their own space. This evolution, taken to the extreme, generated a result each time closer to the idea of a box in box, finally considered the office cubicle.
“The cubicle”, already established as such in the 70’s, exploited and taken to the extreme, ended up being the minimum spatial unit required for middle-level employees, who demanded a space somewhat greater than the open work area, but without reaching the tier of having an office with a window. Although for years it was the symbol and standard of corporate architecture, it ended up becoming the object of great criticism and parodies due to the alienation and low stimulation it generated in the worker.
Common Space Architecture to Sustainable Buildings
The organicism and socialism of the 70-80’s, complete the appearance of numerous examples of corporate architecture, such as the Behher Headquarters, in Apeldoorn Holland, in 1972, of the architect Herman Hertzberger, or the SAS Headquarters, in Stockholm, Sweden, 1988 by the architect Niels Torp that generated a design of high quality common spaces for its workers, thus putting the focus, in something so longed for in times of crisis, such as #SOCIALIZATION.
https://images.app.goo.gl/satXiTvaC4En8JfC9
The 80’s and 90’s bring a professionalization from the constructive point of architecture, with the arrival of “High Tech and Sustainability”, where the paradigm of # SUSTAINABILITY and #CONSTRUCTIVE TECHNOLOGY, are the added value of this famous trend, led by figures like Richard Rogers and Norman Foster. Examples such as the Willis de Faber & Dumas Headquarters, in Ipswich, UK, in 1975 by Foster, or the Lloyd’s Bank Headquarters in London, UK in 1986 by Rogers & Partners, are good examples of this.
Metropolitan Office in Urban Architecture
We continue the journey until the 90-00s, with the arrival of the concept of “Metropolitan Office”, where we already introduced the correlation with the importance of social and cultural change and the real demand of the users of the spaces. This new concept of workspace arises from the #URBAN METAPHOR, led by a younger worker profile, less concerned with the corporate hierarchy but who values the urban and sophisticated lifestyle. A relevant change in values when generating trends. Relevant examples of this context, the TBWA Advertising City, in Los Angeles USA, in 1998, designed by Clive Wilkinson Architects.
We have now reached the time of splendor of the disruptive office concept with the past, as a result of the incorporation into the market of #DOTCOM companies and later #TECH companies, in turn a result of the #STARTUP ecosystem.
In the design of these spaces, with the Google HQ at the forefront, for example at its headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, in 2011, by Camezind Evolution, the appearance of a multitude of workspaces with a playful and even infantilized atmosphere prevails, under the motto that work can and should be “fun”, where game rooms with elements such as billiards or table football bathe office spaces to generate team spirit.
Against this corporate trend, and focused on all those users related to small-medium companies, who distance themselves from the corporate headquarters model, focusing their demand on digital connection and mobility, find their potential workspaces in the novelty of collaborative and shared spaces, “The #COWORKING” or “Office as a social network”, began around the year 2010, with an upward trend until the current break. This phenomenon extends around the world, mainly focused on liberal professionals related to creative companies, in search of a global network of spaces and services that allow users to participate in a new mobility model. The expansion of these spaces from 2015 to 2020 has had an absolute growth projection, which has only been slowed down by the appearance of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Considering this historical journey, everything seems to indicate that the change in trends does not respond to a trend of fashion and aesthetics, but to a change in cultural context, which hides behind it real changes in the demand generated by new cultural and social profiles.
To think that a pandemic of the magnitude experienced and suffered is not going to generate a point of #DISRUPTION and #CHANGE of trend, would be, to a large extent, not wanting to face a real and latent rupture, and denying the historical process that has been our reality.
Not contemplating a new social profile, be it baptized as #PANDEMIALS or renamed with the free labeling that happens, is to deny the maxim, since it seems obvious that everything turns to the importance of an # AGILE response, to a need for #IMMEDIACY, #FLEXIBILITY and the #VUCA (Volatility), (Uncertainty), (Complexity) and (Ambiguity) environment.
We also have to be aware of this new concept of #LIQUID ARCHITECTURE, where space is no longer only light, dimension, colors … in short # LOOK & FEEL; rather, it becomes connection, tools and maximum digitization.
#SPACE and #TECHNOLOGY are condemned to be a linked group, and can no longer be understood independently, if they want to respond to the renewed user with new demands and short-term needs.
