September 17, 2020
Some things will never change. IN Magazine continues to offer the best content you can find on the changing world of work. The digital edition of Issue 3 is now available and print copies will be posted out later in the week. More →
September 16, 2020
Suck it up. The role of property in supporting organisational performance has changed forever. The obsession with bricks and mortar has to shift to the employee-as-consumer experience. If we understand that user experience, then organisations can make the right decisions. The problem is, experience is now scattered across millions of homes worldwide. More →
September 15, 2020
The impact of the Covid-19 lockdown on commercial buildings was immediate – offices emptied overnight as people made the sudden shift to home working. Several months later, and although restrictions are being lifted, an unease about the possibility of localised lockdowns and an uncertainty about the potential health implications of being indoors with larger groups, means fewer people than expected are choosing to go back to office-based working. Something that might help reassure them that the office is a safe place is knowing that the air they’ll be breathing is clean. More →
September 11, 2020
One of the most interesting developments in the way we talk about the design of buildings in recent years is how the issue of wellbeing has found an overlap with environmental concerns. We know instinctively that these are natural partners. What is good for the environment almost always has a direct beneficial effect on people’s physical and mental health, as well as their productivity. More →
September 7, 2020
What can we learn from 2020? Maybe one of the most important lessons is that we had got to accustomed to functioning, working and thinking like machines rather than humans? The deadly Covid-19 virus reminded all of us that the mortal human can never relax and believe all is ‘’OK’’. More →
September 3, 2020
Throughout history we’ve been aware of the state we now refer to as flow. It describes the sensation of existing purely in the moment of some activity, effortlessly achieving what we have set out to achieve and unaware of distractions. Mystics have described it as ecstasy, artists as rapture and athletes as in the zone. This state was first described as flow by the Hungarian psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi in 1975 and has been developed by him and a wide range of other researchers in a number of fields since that time. More →
August 26, 2020
The best lighting design is the one you don’t notice. Coco Chanel once said: “dress shabbily and they remember the dress; dress impeccably and they remember the woman.” It’s the same with lighting. If you notice the light sources, and you can feel annoyed by them, then the design just doesn’t work. Essentially, there’s more to lighting than first meets the eye. More →
August 18, 2020
The world is going through some painful changes at breakneck speed. As a result, the word unprecedented has reached number one spot on our ‘words to avoid’ list. What’s the big deal with unprecedented anyway? Our obsession with all things unprecedented taps into our fear of the unknown. But life itself is an unknown: Life is beta. Nothing is permanent. Every single day things happen that are unprecedented. Damn, said it again. More →
August 14, 2020
We know, and have for a long time, that the workplace is in a state of near constant flux. The meteor strike of lockdown is an accelerant, not a deviation. It has also laid bare -yet again – the faulty assumption that there is some sort of general evolution towards an idealised version of the office. That is why we see so many people routinely willing to suspend their critical facilities to make extravagant and even absurd predictions about the office of the future or even the death of the office. More →
August 12, 2020
There was a time we used to talk with dismay about the Japanese phenomenon of intense social distancing known as hikikomori. We would consider with horror the isolation, lack of engagement with society, poor mental health and loneliness of the people who had almost completely withdrawn to their rooms. Those poor bastards locked up in enclosed spaces linked to the outside world only by screens. More →
August 12, 2020
I have observed with some disbelief the numerous articles that have heralded the “death of the office” and other click-bait driven headlines. It makes for a fun read but fails to really understand exactly what the office is for and how the modern workspace is actually used. The best way to take a view of this is to understand why we will be desperate to return to the office and why organisations should be doing everything they can to ensure it does. More →
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September 18, 2020
When it comes to describing the new world of work, the Scandis have a name for it
by Fredrik Bergsten • Comment, Flexible working, Wellbeing, Workplace design