Office evolution: the twenty first century office

Architectural Review, The, March, 2004 by Francis Duffy

THE TWENTY FIRST CENTURY OFFICE

By Jeremy Myerson and Philip Ross. London: Laurence King. 2003. [pounds sterling]45

If you want interesting and well chosen examples of the latest trends in international office design, paralleled by a brief but sprightly and well informed text, this is the book for you. However, Myerson and Ross's book is also worth commentating on not just for itself alone but for two additional reasons: as a footnote to economic history and as example of a significant trend in architectural publishing.

First the book itself. This is a picture book. The text is clever, offering a neat, if hard to substantiate, categorization of emerging trends in office design--narrative (usually branding exercises), nodal (centres for 'client outreach'), neighbourly (offices designed to be 'places'), and nomadic (environments for what is now generally called 'distributed work'). The 45 examples of office design illustrated represent as sophisticated a selection as any English-speaking designer could hope for. Two thirds come from the UK and the US with the US being slightly more highly represented. The Euro zone is represented by 12 examples. Asia Pacific gets four, Sweden one--a roughly accurate index of where most economic activity in the office sector was distributed during the dizzy period from the late 1990s stock market frenzy to the collapse of the dotcoms in 2001. Equally judicious is the choice of designers from the well established commercial stalwarts such as Gensler, HOK, BDG McColl, to such rising stars as John Pawson, Clive Wilkinson, Massimilano Fuksas, and Ushida Findlay, as well as a sprinkling of father figures such as Gehry, Giancarlo De Carlo, and Miralles. Provenance of design practices and the location of their jobs is no longer closely correlated, interesting evidence of the growing internationalization of office design.

Now for the office as a footnote to economic history. Most of the projects in this book were commissioned and executed just before the collapse of the dot coms. Most were created for big businesses which continue to trade despite the difficulties of the post 9/11 economy. Some have disappeared. All have changed substantially. Looking backwards, what is most striking is how different the mood in business is today compared with the exuberant, unworried playfulness successfully captured in so many illustrations. It is as if one of the most critical functions of office design is to be a kind of hidden hand, an unconscious economic index displaying, if only economists could interpret the signs correctly, dire and certain warnings about the dangers of overconfidence. Professor Parkinson made a similar sour comment decades ago. The practical contemporary version seems to be, 'Never invest in a company that makes a point of displaying a pool table, a swing, or a patch of turf.

Finally the book as a manifestation of a trend in architectural publishing. This is a designers' book. The rationale for its existence seems to be not so much the text (good as it is) or even the subject matter, but the availability of photographs of a certain quality of work by architects and designers. In publishing books about the workplace it is increasingly difficult to communicate images and ideas simultaneously. Workplace books are either all pictures or all words, the former tending towards the striking, eccentric, and bizarre, the latter towards anecdotes, repetition, and--especially in US publishing--endless lists of sure-fire ways to achieve this, that or the other. Obviously neither tells the whole story about the office. More importantly, there is an increasing divergence between points of view and values of producers and consumers of design.

The divergence between art and life is manifested in this collection of magnificent photographs by the relative absence of people. It is well known that architectural photographers generally hate people. A quick count in this book (interiors only and not counting computer simulations, collages or drawings) reveals the following statistic: 65 photographs with people, 149 without. Unusually Gence's office for Vitra in Weil am Rhein displays as many as 25 people. However, the prize, I am delighted to say, goes to DEGW's Egg call centre in Derby with the magnificent total of about 42 human beings, most rather small but en masse entirely preferable to pool tables, swings, and turf.