February 4, 2022
Want people to return to the office? Then create the best office in the world
More obituaries have been written for the office in the past two years than at any time in history. It has often seemed like even the best office in the world couldn’t preserve the idea of the office. And it’s not like the obituaries were all that rare even before the pandemic forced us to reappraise our relationship with work and the times and places we do it. While all these death notices were being served, one particularly well-informed organisation was making some more interesting observations about it all. In particular, it constantly raised the most fundamental question of all. More →
A couple of years ago, in the wake of a surge in self-care start-ups and viral diet fads, Forbes declared 2019 as the year of the 
International law firm, Kingsley Napley, have recently moved to Twenty Bonhill Street, London. The new space has been designed with an ‘activity-based’ flexible working model in mind. This entailed creating a range of spaces which suit the various tasks that are necessary in a modern law firm. 
Architects and designers have always a had a thing for door handles. It’s the kind of detail they like and one of the most genuinely tactile features of a building. Architects from Frank Gehry to Zaha Hadid have worked on the designs of door handles for manufacturers. 
The health charity claims that, in the last fortnight, less than half (49 percent) of the 2,000 UK workers surveyed believed there was a designated first aider in their workplace. 
There are no prizes to be won for saying that the modern workplace is already markedly different from those we have known in recent decades. As remote and flexible working practices have become more common, the role of the office has already begun to evolve – the pace of change has been greatly accelerated by the pandemic, which has resulted in a rethink among many organisations about their real estate needs. 
Pressing the ‘reset’ button is never easy. But I’m a firm believer that, once we do, we become much less averse than we perhaps expected to the change it inevitably brings. This is particularly true of the past eighteen months. From all of the sadness and hardship endured, we are beginning to emerge into a new, changed way of living. One that is both familiar and altogether different. The dichotomy is particularly evident in our workplaces. For many sections of the economy, the office was the ecosystem of our daily working lives. Initial questions of whether the office would survive quickly fell by the wayside, and a more interesting, nuanced, debate of what we want the office to be began. 
In just two weeks, the much-anticipated 
Over a third (37 percent) of Brits say they have felt more stressed since the lifting of lockdown restrictions in July, and one in five (21 percent) still aren’t ready to get back to normal life – and that includes the office – claims a new 
January 31, 2022
From the archive: How organic design can reflect the way people move around a building
by Paul Goodchild • Comment, Workplace design
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