ОБРАЗОВАТЕЛЬНАЯ ПРОГРАММА 2013/14: ПОВСЕДНЕВНОСТЬ Жители российских городов ездят на машинах по загруженным улицам, сидят перед компьютерами в конторах и офисах, встречаются в кафе с друзьями, покупают в магазинах вещи и продукты, а дома — воспитывают детей, делают ремонт и смотрят телевизор. Всё это привычные будни, огромный и сложный мир обыденного, на самом деле очень мало исследованный и слабо отрефлексированный. В 2013/14 году «Стрелка» выбрала темой своей образовательной программы «Повседневность», или Urban Routines. Из чего складывается обыденная жизнь города? Как наша новая реальность соотносится с прошлым и каких изменений можно ждать в будущем? Возможно ли, исследуя структуру обыденного, прийти к масштабным выводам и сделать на их основе инновационные проекты? Эти и другие вопросы находились в центре внимания пяти проектноисследовательских студий «Стрелки» — Жилье/Dwelling, Офисы/ Offices, Автомобили/Cars, Магазины/Retail и Связи/Links. В этой публикации представлены результаты работы студии «Офисы».
Электронный вариант публикации и результаты работы других студий доступны на issuu.com/strelkainstitute
EDUCATION PROGRAMME 2013/14: URBAN ROUTINES Every day city dwellers drive their cars through over-populated streets, sit in front of their office computers, meet friends at local cafes, buy goods and groceries in stores and shops, at home educate their children, renovate, watch TV. The very usual routine, a gigantic and complex world of the ordinary, is in fact quite under-researched and poorly analyzed. In 2013/14 Strelka chose Urban Routines as the theme of its education programme. What defines the daily life of a city? How does the past influence our present reality and what will the future entail? By researching the fabric of the ordinary, is it possible to arrive at ambitious outcomes and create on their basis innovative projects? These and other issues were the focal point of five of Strelka’s research and design studios: Dwelling, Offices, Cars, Retail and Links. This publication presents research outcomes of studio Offices.
This and other studio publications are available for download at issuu.com/strelkainstitute
ДИРЕКТОР Андреас Клок Педерсен РУКОВОДИТЕЛЬ ПРОЕКТА Варвара Мельникова КООРДИНАТОР Софья Савельева СТУДЕНТЫ Анна Головкина, пищевой технолог и проджект-менеджер, Россия; Любовь Русских, архитектор, Россия; Элина Печонова, медиаспециалист, Россия; Эдийс Вуценс, дизайнер концепций, Латвия; Линда Хегберг Андерссон, архитектор и урбанист, Швеция; Лива Дударева, ландшафтный архитектор, Латвия; Юрийс Костирко, архитектор, Латвия; Асен Чумов, архитектор, Латвия; Эдуардо Кассина, вольный художник, Испания; Ольга Полеткина, архитектор, Россия; Георгий Айгунян, архитектор, Россия ЭКСПЕРТЫ-КОНСУЛЬТАНТЫ Денис Соколов, партнер, руководитель отделов исследований, консалтинга и маркетинга в Cushman & Wakefield; Стивен Смит, архитектор и основатель Urban Narrative; Грег Уильямс, журналист и редактор, журнал Wired UK; Эндрю Дипроуз, креативный директор, журнал Wired UK; Борис Брорман, архитектор и урбанист, профессор Орхусского университета, Дания; Клайв Уилкинсон, архитектор и офисный дизайнер штаб-квартиры Google; Лиам Янг, архитектор и основатель Tomorrows Thoughts Today; Григорий Ревзин, архитектурный критик, КБ «Стрелка»; Михаил Алексеевский, антрополог, КБ «Стрелка»; Виктор Вахштайн, Московская школа социальных и экономических наук;
Илья Осколков-Ценципер, медиаменеджер и предприниматель; Илья Завалеев, консультант по энергоэффективному строительству, Ernst &Young; Сергей Кузнецов, главный архитектор Москвы; Карима Нигматулина, директор ГУП «НИиПИ генплана Москвы»; Васильев Андрей, девелопер, «Базовый элемент»; Василий Аузан, экономист, КБ «Стрелка»; Булат Столяров, основатель и генеральный директор Института региональной политики; Денис Леонтьев, CEO и архитектор, КБ «Стрелка»; Алексей Муратов, партнер КБ «Стрелка», руководитель направления «Стратегии развития территорий»; Юрий Григорян, архитектор, бюро «Проект Меганом»
DIRECTOR Andreas Klok Pedersen PROJECT LEADER Varvara Melnikova RESEARCH COORDINATOR Sofia Savelyeva STUDENTS Anna Golovkina, food expert and project manager, Russia; Luba Russkikh, architect, Russia; Elina Pechonova, media specialist, Russia; Edijs Vucens, concept designer, Latvia; Linda Högberg Andersson, architect and urban designer, Sweden; Liva Dudareva, landscape architect, Latvia; Jurijs Kostirko, architect, Latvia; Asen Chumov, architect, Latvia; Eduardo Cassina, freelance artist, Spain; Olga Poletkina, architect, Russia; Georgy Aygunyan, architect, Russia EXTERNAL EXPERTS Denis Sokolov, partner, head of research, consultancy and marketing at Cushman & Wakefield; Steven Smith, architect and founder of Urban Narrative; Greg Williams, journalist and executive editor, Wired Magazine UK; Andrew Diprose, Creative Direction, Wired Magazine UK; Boris Brorman, architect and urbanist, professor at Aarhus School of Architecture, Denmark; Clive Wilkinson, the architect behind the office design at Google's Silicon Valley headquarters; Liam Young, architect and founder of the think tank Tomorrow’s Thoughts Today; Grigory Revzin, architectural critic, KB Strelka; Michael Alekseyevsky, anthropologist, KB Strelka; Victor Vakhshteyn, Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences; Ilya Oskolkov-Tsentsiper, social entrepreneur; Ilya Zavaleyev, green building consultant, Ernst&Young; Sergei Kuznetsov,
Moscow Chief Architect; Karima Nigmatulina, Head of the Moscow Institute for Master Planning; Andrei Vasiliev, developer, Basic Element; Vasily Auzan, economist, KB Strelka; Bulat Stolyarov, Director of the Institute for Regional Policy; Denis Leontiev, CEO & architect, KB Strelka; Alexei Muratov, partner, head of the Territory development strategies, KB Strelka; Yuri Grigoryan, Architect, Project Meganom
СТУДИЯ «ОФИСЫ» В индустриальную эпоху города формировались вокруг заводов, сегодня такими «точками» городского развития являются офисные кластеры. Москва в этом смысле — полноценная часть глобального мира, такой же мегаполис, как и все остальные. Столица функционирует 24 часа в сутки. Здесь работа — новая религия. Неотъемлемая часть повседневности, она не просто занимает большую часть времени горожан — для многих карьера превратилась в основной инструмент самовыражения и самоидентификации. Рабочее место стало «священным». Одно из воплощений идеального рабочего пространства — офисы класса «А». Они расположены в самых дорогих городских районах. На любом континенте они предлагают примерно один и тот же набор услуг. Представления об удобстве в современном офисном мире строго унифицированы, и офисы класса «А» в разных странах похожи друг на друга так же, как неотличимы один от другого торговые центры всего мира. Однако запросы к рабочему пространству повышаются сегодня с той же скоростью, с которой вокруг вырастают одинаковые офисные небоскребы. Большие корпорации вытесняют государство отовсюду, в том числе из сферы городского развития: Google и Facebook — сегодня не только всепроникающие глобальные сервисы, но и принципиально новые способы организации работы и рабочего пространства, влекущие за собой возникновение новых архитектурных типологий. Какие именно факторы влияют на эти запросы? Беспроводные технологии, новые бизнес-модели, крушение культуры централизации и вертикальной интеграции, представления о связи эффективности и самореализации, новые стандарты комфорта — и главное, культ новизны, изменчивости и гибкости — вот новые глобальные вызовы форме и содержанию офисных зданий. Есть ли способ преодолеть ригидность офиса класса «А» — так, чтобы новое офисное здание не успело устареть за время своего строительства? В центре внимания студии «Офисы» было исследование офисной культуры в Москве — городе, где есть и стандартизированные офисные комплексы, и уникальные рабочие пространства, материализовавшиеся из экспериментальных архитектурных форм. Студия исходила из гипотезы, что изучив нужды и желания современного работника и работодателя и попытавшись спроектировать офис таким, чтобы он отвечал постоянно
STUDIO OFFICES In the industrial era cities grew up around factories, while today’s equivalent centers of urban development are office clusters. In this case, Moscow is part of a global trend, a city that works 24/7. Work here has become a form of religion. Being an indispensable part of our daily routine, it has turned into a key tool for self-expression. The workplace became sacred. The Grade A office is one example of the ideal workplace. Clustered in the most valuable areas of cities and built to internationally defined standards, the Grade-A office offers a predictable product in the global real-estate market. However, corporate work patterns are changing as fast as new towers are shooting up. Today, it’s not the government but big corporations like Facebook or Google that are having most impact on changes to the urban environment. They offer a new way of working, and so new architectural typologies appear. But what influences these patterns? New technologies, business models, the disappearance of the culture of centralization and vertical integration, new ways of self-expression and new standards of comfort — these are new global challenges that a typical office building must face. But can we overcome the stiffness of the Grade A office, so that what is being constructed now won’t be obsolete before it is even completed? The focus of the studio "Offices" was on investigating office culture in Moscow — a city where there are both standard office complexes and unique workspaces, materialized from the experimental architectural forms. The studio hypothesized that, after reviewing the needs and desires of the modern worker and employer and trying to design an office to meet the evolving demands of their "residents," it would be possible to make a decisive step toward understanding the structure of everyday life in Moscow, and thus more accurately describe the routine of this great city — its very life. The studio work was conducted in collaboration with a series of invited experts. Steven Smith, an architect and theorist as well as longtime collaborator of Frank Duffy set the stage for the discussion with his lecture on the ongoing change in workspace paradigms. Denis Sokolov, consultant and partner of Cushman & Wakefield, has been guiding the group through the realities of the commercial real-estate market of Moscow. Boris Brorman, Associate Professor in urbanism and architecture at the Aarhus School of Architecture, offered criticism of the individual project work. And, last but not least, Greg Williams and Andrew Diprose of Wired UK guest edited the content throughout
меняющимся потребностям своего «жителя», можно точнее описать повседневность этого огромного города — то есть саму его жизнь. К работе в студии были привлечены несколько экспертов. Стивен Смит, архитектор и теоретик, коллега Фрэнка Даффи, открыл дискуссию лекцией о новейших изменениях в подходах к офисному пространству. Денис Соколов, консультант и партнер Cushman & Wakefield, познакомил студию с особенностями рынка деловой недвижимости в Москве. Борис Брорман, доцент кафедры урбанизма и архитектуры в Орхусском университете, стал рецензентом студийных проектов. И наконец, Грег Уильямс и Эндрю Дипроуз из журнала Wired UK познакомили студию с навыками графического дизайна и визуальной коммуникации, необходимыми для современной проектной работы. Работа студии длилась три месяца. После знакомства с экспертами и изучения конкретных офисных кейсов участники студии занимались разработкой собственных проектов, призванных решить существующие проблемы, создать новую модель офисного пространства или просто по-новому взглянуть на рабочую повседневность. Настоящая публикация подводит итог работы студии и представляет идеи и проекты, которые должны помочь городу сделать офисные пространства — и офисную культуру — более гибкой и разнообразной, соответствующей сегодняшним технологическим достижениям, самым современным бизнес-моделям и самой городской жизни. Отдельная благодарность Денису Соколову и компании Cushman&Wakefield за предоставленные данные и консультации, без которых многие исследования не состоялись бы. — Андреас Клок Педерсен, Варвара Мельникова
the process, guiding the team through the pitfalls of graphical communication. The work of the studio lasted three months. The first part included a series of interviews with experts on the subject as well as statistical mapping, fieldwork and case studies. Several hypothesis were then introduced. The overall aim has been to discover the most pressing challenges, paradoxes, problems or untapped opportunities in the corporate world of Moscow. The research report "Offices" summarizes the studio work and presents ideas and projects that should help the city make office space — and office culture - more flexible and diverse, relevant to contemporary technological developments and the most advanced business models, and to city life itself. With special thanks to Denis Sokolov and the company Cushman & Wakefield for providing data and consultancy that proved indispensable to the research. — Andreas Klok Pedersen, Varvara Melnikova
This book is designed for personal, non-commercial use. You must not use it in any other way, and, except as permitted under applicable law, you must not copy, translate, publish, licence or sell the book without the consent of Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design.
Studio Offices Research report
Content
The Future of the office Elina Pechonova p. 26
Steven Smith “Gone with the Cloud” Interview by Elina Pechonova How technologies have been killing office? p. 18
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Rethinking the office definition Denis Sokolov, Cushman&Wakefield p. 14
Timeline "The Evolution Of Offices" Eduardo Cassina, Asen Chumov, Elina Pechonova, Linda Högberg Andersson p. 32
Office Atlas Of Moscow Liva Dudareva, Luba Russkikh, Georgy Aygunyan p. 36
7 Case studies p. 42
Moscow City takes off. Stop over city
Offices vs The City. Three Strategies For Moscow To Work Smarter
Liva Dudareva and Eduar-
Linda Högberg Andersson
do Cassina
p. 66
p. 56
Genplan as a key tool for the city development Interview with Karima Nigmatulina p. 62
Microrayon 2.0. Why The Periphery Is The Future Of Workspace Luba Russkikh p. 74
Studio Offices Research report
Content
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The Iceberg Office And another 74 Ideas For Offices Jurijs Kostirko, Asen Chumov, Georgy Aygunyan p. 119
The secret behind Google’s processor Interview with
Eat, Work, Love
Clive Wilkinson p. 82
Anna Golovkina p. 102
Choice. Do we really need it? Work Out. The New Work City Edijs Vucens p. 88
Olga Poletkina p. 111
Game of offices Interview with Liam Young. Anna Golovkina p. 96
Институт медиа, архитектуры и дизайна «Стрелка» открывает набор на 2014/15 учебный год. Институт предлагает образовательную программу в области городского развития для специалистов с высшим образованием. Программа рассчитана на девять месяцев. Предусмотрены стипендия и стажировки. Обязательно уверенное владение английским языком. Прием документов до 26 июля. applytostrelka.com
RETHINKING THE OFFICE DEFINITION
Studio Offices Research report
Critical review
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Critical review by Denis Sokolov, Cushman & Wakefield
“Unless you don't have to work a lot, it doesn't matter where you work”, a thought from a character of the Soviet film “Spring”. Perhaps nothing shows social progress in our country so clearly as the fact that this phrase has become a reality for our daily routine.
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Studio Offices Research report
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Belyayevo is a classic microrayon, the standardised neighbourhood system that successive Soviet regimes laid out across the USSR. Belyayevo’s buildings, and the desolate spaces between them, are identical to thousands of others, but is it different?
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Studio Offices Research report
Critical review
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Generally, soviet proverbs, which are dedicated to work ( «работа не волк, в лес не убежит» (the work will still be there tomorrow), show more clearly than anything else that the socialist economic system was a failure. It's not a surprise that in soviet vernacular the word “office” was never used. People used words like “organization” or “bureau” instead. In people’s minds buildings were always associated with the organization they were occupied by. For example Lubyanka district was associated only with KGB. The very idea of an organization moving from one place to another seemed insane. The planned economy suppressed not only human but also business mobility. And as we all know mobility is the key to a successful business. It's no wonder that the 90s was filled with business transformations. There was no space for new businesses. That’s why in the 90s the word “office” gained an almost sacred meaning. The process of renting an office was a sort of initiation for a new company. Twenty years later the new generation thinks of offices as symbols of corporate enslavement. We want to work in parks and gardens. Today’s citizen understands perfectly that work is a crucial part of life and life is too short to be spent on useless work. Career Builder and EMSI statistics, provided by Forbes, about the best and worst jobs, place 5 professions at the top of the list: software developer, analyst, development , financial analysts and psychiatrist. Radio presenters, taxi drivers, soldiers, newspaper journalists and lumbermen come in last. This ranking is relevant primarily for the USA and takes into account not only the current salary level, but also career perspectives and ease of recruitment. In Russia it’s different. People can find jobs at the top of the list in less than a month and a newspaper journalist can wait for 3 months without work. It seems that only soldiers won’t have any work troubles modern Russia. This list also interestingly places office workers at the top, whilst among the worst jobs there are almost none. The modern vernacular contains terms such as “office planktons”. The internet is full of adverts offering an end to office slavery and quick and cheap advice on how to become a successful businessman; i.e how to transform yourself from a weak unlucky creature into a self-assured maverick. For the last 15 years 15 million m2 of office space was built in Moscow. Roughly speaking
TODAY’S CITIZEN UNDERSTANDS PERFECTLY THAT WORK IS A CRUCIAL PART OF LIFE AND LIFE IS TOO SHORT TO BE SPENT ON USELESS WORK
that is about 1.5 mln workplaces that didn’t exist before. This is raw evidence for the postindustrial economy, goods are produced not in factories, but through professional work. That’s why contemporary office can’t be compared to Konstantin Melnikovs work house. It’s the same manufacture assembly line but producing nonmaterial goods. Even though today there are about 2 mln. m 2 of free office space (15% of all offices in Moscow), developers continue to construct new buildings. Every year, about 400-500 thousand m 2 of new office space is being built; most of this will remain empty. The situation has become even worse with the banning on office construction in the Moscow city center. Many offices are being built in areas that are unsuitable for work, with bad transport infrastructure and a limited local work force. Industrial manufacturing doesn’t require a consistently high quality work force. Well developed training programmes can produce an infinite number of industrial workers. But, the situation is very different for qualified workers. Modern companies can’t hire just anyone to be their financial director, only a person a very specific skill set, with relevant experience and extensive connections. Such people are very hard to find in the city, perhaps a reasons why headhunting is flourishing here. a comfortable and fully equipped office could be big source of attraction for a prospective employee. Offices are useful and they are different. Some buildings have become havens for big foreign companies. a man might change his job several times but stay in the same building; moving from one floor to another. There are more than 20 such office islands; they are very similar to structures in London or Paris. Offices are divided into Grade a and Grade B. Grade a offices are have more equipment and better constructed. But Grade a also entails certain regulation in terms of how the infrastructure is developed. For example if some floors in a Grade a office are sold to another developer the building will loose it's Grade a classification. If the building has more than one owner it's obviously much harder to manage it efficiently. The group of developers who build offices is very diverse. 8 out of 10 offices in Moscow were built by companies for whom it was their first project. Some of them have managed to achieve a good result with the help of foreign
Studio Offices Research report
specialists, but most of Moscow office buildings aren’t of a high quality. It’s important that city authorities only recently worked out how an office operates and what is needed to make people feel comfortable. Regulators have created conflict between practicality and costs. Nevertheless during the economic boom at the beginning of the 21st century, due to an office space shortage, buildings were leased before construction even started. Companies moved from offices in apartments or hotel rooms into large new wide spaces. Rental rates grew and the office market ignored even the biggest failure on the part of the developers. Today it’s completely different. Economic growth has slowed down. But, new offices are still being developed even when big companies are concentrating on reducing expenses and increasing efficiency. That’s why the demand for new office spaces is just not that big in Moscow. Construction persists, because the development cycle is about 5-10 years and these buildings were planned, designed and funded in a different economical and political reality. New projects are more efficient and of a better quality than old ones. That’s why in the near future there will be 2 mln. M2 of free office space in Moscow. All the best buildings will be occupied. Even though the office market originally ignored failures, the punishment was just postponed. Big corporation are pretty similar in their preferences for office space. Normally requiring about 2-3 thousand m2; this amount is suitable for placing entire departments on one floor, thereby minimizing vertical movements. They need fail-safe electricity, good transport infrastructure and to be located in a prestigious city district. These factors are crucial because companies are fighting for the work force. a good office can become a serious advantage in this regard. Regardless of the currently ambiguous nature of office life most of my colleagues don’t consider the office to be defining factor in a job search. It's obvious that salary and career prospects are more important, but still it is important to carefully evaluate the place you might have to spend 9 or 10 hours in, every day for the next couple of years. Not everybody looks for the same things. Some want separate cozy cubicles, others want hammocks or a GYM. Some just want a simple office with no distractions. When you need to quickly check something with a colleague you
THE MODERN OFFICE IS A COMMUNICATION FACTORY. ALL YOU NEED TO DO IS RAISE YOUR HEAD TO FIND OUT WHETHER A CO-WORKER YOU NEED IS AT HIS DESK
don’t want to have to search for him in the gym or coffee shop or have to check all the hammocks! Open plan offices have attracted a lot of criticism. People often say that they need private space. But those who are used to working in groups on projects know that communication is very important. The modern office is a communication factory. All you need to do is raise your head to find out whether a co-worker you need is at his desk; a quick stroll past a colleague might jog your memory enough to remember that he only just completed a project similar to yours last week. That’s why companies are not willing to build creative spaces , because there seems to be distinct advantage. Yes, there are top performers like Google or Facebook for whom experimentation has always been at the core of their business process. But this outlook is generally very rare. For exactly the same reason home offices are not that popular. Because in almost every sphere (except maybe the world of blog posting) communication is crucial. The home office with all its advantages (it costs the company nothing) has never become crucial part of corporate culture. Big companies understand the role offices play today. For new workers they are like shop windows that not only attract customers but scare away those who don’t identify with the core audience. If shop windows are decorated with neon colors the average middle-aged customer would always walk by; he is right to do this, the shop isn’t for him. The same goes for the office. People who say that they chose a certain employer because they liked the office aren’t talking about the marble exterior. They are talking about the atmosphere and corporate culture, which is reflected in the office design and presumably matches their core values. That’s why when choosing a future job you better take a close look at office. Not everything is obvious at first glance; a good office might not mean a good company. I used to work in an awful office without windows, but everybody there was so enthusiastic that they didn’t bother to pay attention to the interior. But, the situation can be completely different: An expensive office with depressed workers and low salaries. It’s important to remember that even if there are hammocks in the office that doesn’t mean that you’ll have the time to use them.
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GONE WITH THEINTERVICLOUD EW WITH
Studio Offices Research report
Interview
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STEVEN SMITH ON OFFICES AND THEIR FUTURE
It’s not possible to define exactly when and where the concept of an office as a consolidation of workplaces and CBD’s as consolidation of offices was born. However, there is an exact time and date of its demise: New York 9/11. The 21st century urges us rethink offices both physically and conceptually. This was the starting premise for conversation with architect and urbanist Steven Smith. by Elina Pechonova
Studio Offices Research report
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Studio Offices Research report
Interview ――Steven, would you agree that the CBD as 20th century phenomenon has became outdated?
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going to get automated, and I think quite a lot actually: anything routine, anything which is a very simple system that a computer could do faster and cheaper. Things like answering the telephone in order to give a piece of information are already more or less automated; it’s likely that soon they will be completely automated. Machines will provide bank services with no drawbacks like working hours and lunch breaks. Taxi-drivers forget it; just like driving on highways. What these people who are going to do for living in ten years, I don’t know and that’s a really big problem.
The old idea of the central business district, the idea that everybody has to be very close together at the same time in the same place in order to do work, clearly is nonsense. Actually Bill Mitchell predicted its death well before 9/11, in the early nineties. The reasons for people to physically gather together have really been destroyed by information technology. So that logic is gone. But maybe there are some other theories that will support the concept of a concentrated place with lots of people.
――With automation replacing the
――Like what? If CBD’s are outdated
white-collars will the demand of office
but not finished what will they evolve
workplaces drop?
into?
You would have to be a really courageous man to put your money into office buildings. I don’t believe that the future can be in high-cost offices. In the City of London hundreds of developers have been building more of the damn things; the people who are doing this are rich men, unlike me. I might be completely wrong but I can’t see the logic of it. Why as a business would you pay 60 pounds a square foot? No way! Who wants it?
For example I could see the CBD as a place where lots and lots of small companies interact in a fun way and do that for pleasure rather than for the straight economics of it. It’s really good to be with your friends and colleagues and miserable to be on your own. People might well go to office buildings but not every day. They may go there once a week or they would go there for a special occasion or a special event to specially interact with others. CBD might evolve in that sense into something much closer to leisure than to boring old office work. ――However lots of CBDs are being built around the world? Is there sense and potential in it?
No at least not in the old form. It’s really foolish to be building CBDs. That one we visited in Moscow is incredibly mad to be honest. What was the logic of it? On the other hand the property market is a very slow business with most of the buildings, and the business models that underpin them, having been designed ten years ago. But ten years in computing time is incredibly long! So what we’re seeing is old ideas being built. In this sense I would agree with your premise. The other future that we ought to put into this context is automation. The big discussion at the moment is how much white-collar work is
most of your time working elsewhere: at home, at a hotel, on the road, in the airport etc. ――So what will be the new symbol of the new era? Do Business parks and serviced offices have enough potential to define the urban environment like CBD’s did?
They are a late 20th century phenomenon as well. Dotcom cities were about the edge city concept. In the United States the CBD itself is not that strong but edge cities are incredibly strong and between those you find this phenomenon of a city-in-a-building. The future will be eclectic, with bigger versions of massive corporations like Google or Pfizer maintaining big research and development parks on the outsides of the cities, some medium companies and the rest will be microbusinesses. It’s worth getting some data out on sizes of the businesses: 99% of businesses are small but they generate in UK at least half of the economy. ――Density of physical offices used to be crucial in defining avant-garde business cities and global economic centers. However globalization and digitalization synchronized business
――Conservatism could be the answer.
opportunities are demolishing this
The people who build and the people
correlation. Should we expect the
who want these buildings are conser-
decay of serviced cities New York,
vative.
Hong-Kong, Tokyo followed by the de-
Yes, but also these are people who are clever. How do they fool themselves into thinking it’s a good idea? I don’t get it.
cay of industrial centers like Detroit and Soviet monocities?
then? Serviced offices and offices-
No because they’re so complex but they will just absorb the change. But I certainly think that manufacturing cities will be hit really hard.
on-demand; will it become an issue
――Article 23.1 of the Universal
of distribution rather than construc-
Declaration of Human Rights states:
tion?
“Everyone has the right to work, to
That’s right. I think there’s going to be big market there. There is going to be a new version of what Regus and its competitors have been doing; but not as boring I hope. Lots of Business Clubs are opening in London as well, which I think could become a worldwide phenomenon. Maybe that’s what CBD and all these glamorous buildings will evolve into: really sexy kind of clubs where you go a couple of days a week spending
free choice of employment, to just
――Where will all the competition go
and favorable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment”. But there was a time when work was not only a right but also a duty. Only half a century ago “the last of the great Russian poets” Joseph Brodsky was accused of so called social parasitism and spent 5 years in a labor camp because everyone had to perform physical work. Today we have debates on flexible hours
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World Trade Center before 2001, New York
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Interview
22 Typical Networked office space
and Grade a offices. Does that mean that the brave new world is already here and the dynamics of work and people’s relationships are positive if not exponentially positive?
You can paint various futures. One would be a future where there are very few extremely wealthy people and the rest of us get by but on the very ordinary subsistence level. It was happening in the USA, it is happening in this country (UK) and I guess in Russia too, with oligarchs having more money than one could possibly imagine and everybody barely above the food line. Computer technology tends to reinforce those effects; the winner takes all, everyone else gets nothing. Everybody uses Google — nobody uses all the other search engines, everybody uses Amazon — nobody uses other online marketplaces. It is certainly one of the least pleasant ideas about the future of the workplace. And
Eastern regions into global economic
thing. One of the interesting trends at the moment (and we don’t know how it will end up) is the digital production of things that undermines that idea of those two things (administration and manufacture) as being separate. This idea of the knowledge economy, where we all do office work and the Chinese people do all the manufacturing stuff is a crazy concept. In ten years time manufacturing will return (being largely automated) to the cities of the West. You can envision office buildings full of 3D printers. And it’s already beginning to happen in advanced manufacturing, for example Formula one has printers that print the parts for their cars.
ghettos, letting them do all the physi-
――But then again won’t this destroy
cal and dirty work?
the economy of developing countries
All this evil was a 20th century idea, wasn’t it? There was a huge amount of administration work to do and it was completely separate from making any-
where manufacturing is cheap and
the worst version of that would be a return to France before the Revolution with peasants vs. aristocracy. As an optimist I’d suggest a different scenario: computer technology would set us free: we can associate with anybody on the planet, we can bypass all the hierarchies and all of the politics and get together in new creative ways to do new creative things. People will find really clever ways to learn, to work, to socialize, to make a living. It all will be new and it all will be different. ――Does it guarantee us a presumption of innocence? Can Googlers in the West work guilt-free while they turn
profitable so far?
Not at all, developing countries are moving so fast that they will be able to
Studio Offices Research report
completely digitize their economy. They will be able to apply innovations to the manufacturing process, make use of mass customization, mix up creativity and administration, automate administration. All of these things are part of the trend; in particular, in India because it’s such a young country. And if you have young people in your economy it’s nothing but optimistic.
and space. I think we should get much more engaged in temporary things, in mixing up interiors and reusing space that we’ve already got. I think we’ll be digitally printing buildings. We’ll have to find several new positions in the process. It used to be that the architect was the professional, on the one side there was a person with the money who was the client on the other side a person who made the building. All these roles can get mixed up. I imagine architects working inside buildings, construction companies helping them to produce much of the building fabric through the digital process so we can jump straight from drawing to construction. I think clients would want the process to be very quick; for example you might go into a space and completely refit it overnight. The next day people come and it’s completely transformed, ready for a completely different function.
――What about digital ghettos, 4.5 billion people in the world still have no access to Internet?
I’m sure there will be some: North Korea and fundamentalist religious cultures are in trouble. One thing they are going to be hit by is modernity. You cannot escape it; you cannot shelter yourself from the big impacts of globalization, the inexorable power of computing and the connectivity between peoples and ideas. You cannot put a fence around yourself and say we hate all that and we are not going to respond. You’ll end up with a medieval view of the world in an enlightened culture
――The government-affiliated Russian agency for strategic initiatives has recently published an
――So it’s not economy but politics that will be
atlas of future professions. It also gave a list of
the main obstacle for improvement of the work-
the professions that will go extinct. The news
life balance on a global scale.
isn’t good; journalists are in the list. But it’s
It’s an obstacle but like the CBD it’s a historic phenomenon. It will take a long time; people are apprehensive about being global citizens. However, I think the natural future is that everybody will have access to every piece of information in the world; everybody will have access to literacy; everybody will have access to information, which will allow them to transform themselves.
not all bad: architects will stay, though experts
――Are generation Y, the generation which was
skills and professions?
introduced to labor market before digitalization,
There is a danger in being just a generalist who’s not very good at anything and there’s an equal danger in being a very narrow specialist. It used to be that you needed to be a deep specialist with broad cultural level. Something you could achieve by living in a richer urban environment. This will stay. What you can see changing is that people might have many more careers: i.e. ten 5-year careers rather that one 50-year career.
forecast that architects will deal with virtual realms mainly; perhaps like Ariadne in Inception. The very presence of such “sexy” professions in the dead list throws doubt on the rise of the creative class. Who will become the new sexy? Or are we moving towards a classless, jobless society, where people have cross-disciplinary
the main opponents to this transformation?
And the main losers. There are certain groups of people who will never ever get another job and will be left behind by the changes. Their professions will be gone with the cloud. We can only be compassionate about this. ――Here is a description of a profession that will come into existence, according to Sparks&Honey,: “Skype Staging: Hired career advisors that prepare and help an individual work through remote interviews or video conferencing, including etiquette, appearance and conversational skills”.
As someone who’s conducted Skype Interview, I’d say there probably is already demand for such a profession. However, there was only one profession in the top 19 with any kind of urban connation. What do you think will happen to architects and architecture? We have to move away from being obsessed with making buildings and become more involved in the relationship between organizations
MAYBE THAT'S WHAT CBD WILL EVOLVE INTO: REALLY SEXY KIND OF CLUB WHERE YOU GO A COUPLE OF DAYS A WEEK SPENDING MOST OF YOUR TIME WORKING ELSEWHERE
――With people becoming more and more multiprofessional it seems more and more buildings and workplaces have become shared and designed for mixed-use. At least that’s what you and Duffy seem to argue, that offices are grossly underused, evangelizing hot-desking type policies. But why not go to the logical next step and create mixed-used apartments? Since people tend to work at home maybe it’s not the workplace but the home that needs to be rethought?
You are absolutely right. We concentrate on offices but almost all space is terribly underused. You should see the apartment buildings in
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Interview
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London; they are completely helpless, inflexible; divided up into tiny rooms. Yet, they are still built by the thousand. It’s a pathetic idea of how people live: they go home, they make tea, they go to sleep, then they get up in the morning and they go to the office. We need to rethink the environment to rethink what flats are like, how they are purchased, how they are built and how they are occupied. Most things are designed for users between the age of 25 and 35. Take things like the supermarket — just imagine what would happen if everybody who went to the supermarket was over 70 — nothing would work! The old people couldn’t reach the things on the top shelve because they can’t stretch, they can’t read anything because their eyesight is not good enough, they can’t carry anything to the car, because they are weak and slow — all these issues appear if you change your assumptions about the age group. The same scenario can be applied to offices.
the human-office: a sort of lobby space. I think Strelka is a very good example: if you go to your bar, there are always people working there whether they’re coming for breakfast or holding meetings meetings or just discussing ideas. ――After Marissa Mayer of Yahoo banned telecommuting, the telecom business split into two camps: those for and those against work flexibility. Do you believe that we can turn back time and close Pandora’s box?
Russia’s top business Newsletter Vedomosty —
I don’t and I think that this is something very sinister, which will lead to a very pessimistic view of the future. One of the other consequences of being in these large technology companies is that you don’t have any individual freedom of identity that is separate from the company. I find it very disturbing that Google employees are expected to say: “oh we’re all googlers and it’s a way of life and it’s a culture, we believe in this”. I like the idea of people having freedom, not just being a company person. The other side of the statement “you will not work from home” is that “you will never leave the office”. Next you’ll drive to work in a Google car you’ll live in a Google flat you’ll eat Google food. I think that’s just horrible.
All employees will disperse to their homes and
――Like it or not Mayer’s memo seems to have
leave the streets, meaning the streets will be
given other companies a license to ban working
dominated by antisocial individuals. This already
from home. Can we call the countermovement
happens in Washington. Even in Moscow City life
to ‘work-to-go’?
dies every evening. In a few more years, tech-
buildings and time in several dimensions: from
I think in any kind of free and liberal organization we should be using technology to free ourselves not to enslave ourselves; that’s the point. We should be using it to organize our lives, to work when we can or want to, to fit in other aspects such as looking after our kids, or even to use it to socialize in new ways. It’s a very American idea that you’re a “company man” or even a Japanese “company son” who wears the company clothes. I think we should be a bit more rebellious. I mean who wants all that rubbish?
rooms that change daily to the external shell of
――What was your impression of Moscow City?
the office building lasts the longest, on aver-
It was a connection of objects, the spaces between buildings were not really interesting, the shared space, the lobby space, the shopping mall, the underground spaces, they were all just random — the things that brings all of these things together into a place were very weak. Developers are making a place out of objects whereas they should make a space and put the objects around the space. I can’t imagine someone going to this CBD as a public space. They would go somewhere else where there’s fun, get a bit of atmosphere by the river. There was all that potential at the City. But people only go there if they have to.
――In 5-10 years the end of the working day will be followed by a curfew. It will be dangerous to go outside after 6 p.m. This is the prediction of
nology will have changed so much that cities in their traditional form could be gone.
I simply don’t buy this idea that future is some dreadful collapse of society. It may happen in some places with bad politicians and administrations or a weak society, but this is not the future of the city. The people’s role at the heart of the city center is the same as it has always been. ――In your lecture at Strelka you spoke about
age around 50 years. You also spoke about age and the flow of people as being key forces for change. Indeed, demography expects the average human born in the 21st century to live and work for longer than any generation before it. Does that turn people into office equipment and if so shouldn’t the office gradation reflect this?
Interiors of offices do change very quickly; they need to change even faster. This would allow people to use one office very early in the morning to very late at night for all sorts of different things: learning, fostering community relationships, social functions. That’s the view of the future of
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STATEMENT “YOU WILL NOT WORK FROM HOME” IS THAT “YOU WILL NEVER LEAVE THE OFFICE”
Studio Offices Research report
25 "Work and the city", Steven Smiths' Lecture at Strelka institute for media, architecture and design, February 2014
――What could be the potential of this
the commercial estate market: “The
place? Do you see any way to improve
bigger Moscow”. How do you think it
it without demolishing it?
can be attractive for offices to be on
If developers invested a lot of imagination and creativity into these shared spaces, possibly. Canary Warf in London had the same ingredients: some offices, some apartments, bits of infrastructure, but they have brought it all together with wonderful public spaces, wonderful connections to the underground system, an ice-skating in the winter and it worked. In Moscow city you should have an ice-skating rink; it should be a great space; the connection to the water could become a great advantage. When looking down from one of the towers there was just the horrible grey roof of a shopping mall dotted with air conditioning units. Imagine if you looked down onto a garden, something that could stimulate the emotions; now there’s nothing like that.
the periphery?
Bigger Moscow might be useful for large companies but that’s just one tiny bit of the office ecosystem of the city. The question is, what kind of spaces does Moscow’s business environment need ? You’ll need some large spaces, you’ll need some very small-scale environments for small and medium-sized enterprises, you’ll need some very cheap space for startups, you’ll need some very expensive space for people who want to impress somebody else. There must be a holistic approach to this, not project management. ――The ‘end of history’ was a concept that was popular not long ago, it argued that with the proliferation of liberal democracies, social evolution was over. With telecommuting and serviced workplaces, have we
――There’s another huge project, at
reached the final peak of the ‘Office’?
the moment, to change the stakes at
What we are facing is just a period of
change that allows for new types of organization, social structures and environment to be appear. This is the future not the end of offices. However, if you go to an office and take a picture of it and keep it in your drawer for ten years, you’re going to be shocked. It’s a bit like when you look at offices from 10 years ago — everybody was smoking! Some of this future isn’t voluntary and its our task is to respond positively to it. ――Symbolically the office museum has no office. There’s only an online platform. However if we were putting on a real expo what offices would you advise putting there?
That would be nice! You have to put the Seagrum building in there; you have to put in an openplan smoking office; you have to put in the Herman Miller action office. Maybe you could put in the offices of some particular individuals (Bill Gates’ office, whatever that looks like). Of course, you’ll have to include the Moscow CBD.
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THE FUTURE OF THE OFFICE by Elina Pechonova
Article 23.1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: “Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favorable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment”.
Offices Strelka research report
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Studio Offices Research report
The Future Of The Office
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But, till only recently, work was not only the privilege but first and foremost the duty of every Russian. “The last of the Great Russian poets” Joseph Brodsky was accused of so-called social parasitism. The transcript of the trial was later published and now looks like one of Kafka’s novels. However, it took place fifty years ago in Russia. At the time, the fact that a man had been intensively writing, translating, and lecturing was not considered to be a normal or useful job; the work paradigm for Soviet Russia was very much blue-collar oriented. Everyone had to physically contribute to the wealth of the communist society. This particular “social parasite” was sentenced to 1,5 years at a labor camp near Arkhangelsk. In 1987 Joseph Brodsky was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature “for an all-embracing authorship, imbued with clarity of thought and poetic intensity”. And today his life-style is a role-model for thousands and thousands of knowledge workers. With blue-collars being constantly replaced by white-collars, with the coming knowledge economy, with the constant debates about sustainable work and Grade a offices, can we really say that the “brave new world” is already here and that work has evolved positively? What is the future of the office?
of goods and services requires less and less human labor. Japan has one of the lowest unemployment rates for humans, yet the highest rate for its robots. Thousands of Japanese industrial robots now stand silent, victims of the global economic downturn in a country that hosts the highest robot-to-human ratio. So if during the 20th century knowledge workers couldn’t escape manual labour, this new age seems to ask whether there will be enough demand for automated labor. Another trend to be considered when designing the future of workplaces is the idea of professions which are yet to come. According to Sparks & Honey “60% of the best jobs in the next ten years haven’t been created yet”. Specialist jobs like Digital Death Manager, Personal Life Log Archivist and Skype Stager are now ranked among the top-20 emerging professions due to continuing digitalization. This speculation is echoed by the Russian Agency for Strategic Initiative, which recently published its Atlas of new professions. We should perhaps also call it the “Atlas of dying professions” as the document provides a list of jobs and industries that will disappear with the cloud revolution, dramatically changing the routines that we are all used to. The legacy of Taylorism, the belief that a largely uneducated and unmotivated workforce wouldn’t work unless they were watched, measured and incentivized to the hilt, is still strong in many management philosophies. This was appropriate in an economy largely based around manufacturing but for one based around knowledge work it makes little sense. In a knowledge economy centralized, standardized, mandated, and controlled ways of working are starting to be superseded by more virtualized, agile and individualized approaches. “Command and control” evolves into a model of “connect and collaborate”. However, even in the telecoms industry, located at the avant-garde of the technological shift, there is a clash of work styles with no clear or unified understanding of which path to follow. To become the absolute best place to work, communication and collaboration will be important; we need to be working side-by-side. “We need to be one Yahoo!, and that starts with physically being together.”, the words of Marrissa Meyer right after she was appointed as the new CEO of Yahoo and removed the established flexible work options of her employees. Meyer was strongly opposed by one of the most successful businessmen in the world, Richard Branson who wrote in his twitter: “In 30 years, as technology moves forward even further, people are going to look back and wonder why offices ever existed”. Where from tis quote is? Before committing to one of the positions stated above it is worth mentioning the pros and cons of going to work or working on the go (work-to-go). The interesting thing in comparing the 4 propositions is that both possibilities could possibly improve and undermine the focus of employees. Another interesting result is that all 4 are employee-oriented, implying that it is workers who stand to benefit when holding to this or that work/life-style.
A century ago 35% of a human life was devoted to employment. Today that figure has dropped to 12-13% and continues to decline
The office is dead! Long live the office!
A century ago 35% of a human life was devoted to employment. Today that figure has dropped to 12-13% and continues to decline. At the same time as a result of scientific and technical progress the production of greater amounts
GO TO WORK.
ADVANTAGES
DISADVANTAGES
ADVANTAGES
DISADVANTAGES
Infrastructure Good for Extroverts Fixed schedule Clear Rules Status Career perspectives Brainstorming Socializing Serendipity Coffee-machine Security Focus Atmosphere Fun Lunch It might-be Grade A
Lack of privacy Hierarchy Bureaucracy Routine Overwork Feeling used Traffic Waste Dress-code Dependence Sick-building syndrome Expenses Control Surveillance Focus Gossips Fixed schedule
Good for introverts Better work/life balance No dress-code Multitasking Independence Flexible schedule No stress No sick building syndrome Economy Comfort Rest and exercise on-demand Choice Focus
Lack of routine Overwork Guilt Bad for Extroverts Focus Procrastination No fixed schedule/ rules No help No career development Lack of networking No social bonuses No coffee machine Expenses No status 24/7
However, even today most office workers are ready to take the risk of working remotely (78 % according to RBC survey). Even if that means descending socially to a freelancer status. Services like e-lance are providing this kind of career development. Indeed, the global freelance survey states that the five top reasons to Freelance as being: 1. I wanted more flexibility 2. I wanted creative control over my projects 3. I wanted to work from home 4. I wanted more money 5. I wanted to grow a business Besides, working from home is no longer gender oriented, as most of freelancers are single men. But why do people not seem to appreciate their routine? Because, they want to work not to office. When I ask people “Where do you go when you really need to get something done?” I barely ever hear someone say the office. But, businesses spend all this money on this place called “the office”, and they make people go there constantly, and yet people work inefficiently in the office. Thus argues Jason Fried, co-author of “Rework.” and a “work-to-go” evangelist. Indeed the paradox is that offices are never used to their full potential. Many workplaces are half-empty during the workday, see
Frank Duffy and Steven Smith. An average Russian white-collar would work 212 days annually (calculated for 2014 based on official holidays, daysoff and average sick-leave). The loss is more dramatic in hours; however, in the previous year the average Russian officially only worked 1970 hours out of a total of 8760. Is the physical office needed at all? However, urban routines are still manipulated by real estate, and offices in the city center are the cash cow. Apart from being expensive, the main obstacle for building new Grade a offices in the heart of a megalopolis is that it’s either occupied or restricted, or both, like in case of Moscow. In this context there’s an opportunity for alternative architecture and innovative projects like Earthscraper. On
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Studio Offices Research report
Future Of The Office major design and tech media, the conceptual design for a 65-story, 82,000-square-foot inverted pyramid underneath Mexico City was covered by over a million stories in diverse publications, since it was introduced by BNKR Arquitectura in 2011. It suggests a future of underground office spaces. But will there even be physical offices in the future? There are many controversial forecasts and speculations. Johnson Controls, among others, produced some possible images of the future in its recent research project titled “Global WorkPlace Innovation”. Based on this research 3 representative scenarios for future of office and work can be singled out:
The utopian scenario
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Economic growth rapidly accelerates, driven by technological advances and deregulation. Major disasters cause knowledge workers to take refuge in home-working and the corporate office no longer exists. The new workplace structure is the ‘hive’, where employees work in spaces called ‘bubbles’ that integrate home, work and social life. ‘Smart’ thinking, design and development become particularly relevant to the technology sector as the demand for customized accommodation and facilities increase.
The dystopian scenario
Based in a Fragmented, disjointed and insecure world in which economic stagnation has intensified cultural and racial differences. The corporate hierarchical structure is now more prominent and the workplace is similar to a production line in a manufacturing plant. The corporate society has emerged in its worst possible form. It controls its employees, by using technology such as finger printing, retinal and genetic identification, controlling access and information..
The heterotopian scenario
A stable, knowledge based, global economy based on collaboration and consensus, and focused on environmental balance and social progress. Eco-offices, similar to hotels, emerge, providing services, which improve the quality of both life and work, and attempt to attract the top talent. So one scenario suggests that the office disappears, the second one suggests that worst aspects of the office will intensify, and the third suggests that it becomes a different. However, the only constant for all of them is change.
Conclusion
The office as we know it today emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. There are 3 generic types of offices that can be found in Moscow and elsewhere: The Taylorist Office: the consequence of the Nineteenth Century invention of ‘Scientific Management’! The Social Democratic Office: the consequence of post Second World War social and economic reconstruction! The Networked Office: made possible by robust, reliable,
ubiquitous 21st Century information technology! None of the workplaces of the past have replaced each other, the physical office is outdated but not dead. It will exist in the future, but it will be very different from the office of today. Time will replace space in location based decision-making. Polycentric central business districts (CBDs) will replace the mono-centric CBD model prevalent in many cities today. Greater emphasis will be placed on re-use of existing real estate in the city.
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Over the past 150 years, gross domestic product in developed countries increased over 1000% , and the number of hours worked per person halved. Hard work will ultimately lead to the disappearance of the current conception of labor.
Proposal
Symbolically the museum of the office has no office. There’s only an online platform. Steven Smith in an interview for Strelka said that it is still
only old ideas that are being built. So by the time the Moscow CBD is completed it will be hopelessly outdated and hardly even attractive to prospective renters. Alternative development of this area might focus on the creation of public space instead of a business center, imagine a wonderful attraction for tourists instead of just another office. Steven Smith: “That would be nice! You have to put a Seagrum building in there, you have to put in an open plan smoking office, you have to put in the Herman Miller action office, you might put the offices of some individuals in there (Bill Gates’ office, whatever the looks like) and of course the Moscow CBD.” Just as a museum displays an artifact, so Moscow should embrace the office. The Moscow CBD has enough space to almost become a sort of office matryoshka, different layers forming a museum within a museum.
Studio Offices Research report
The evolution of offices
SULLIVAN/LLOYD WRIGHT ERA Louis Sullivan, the father of the skyscraper as an office typology, revolutionize the way we perceive offices to this day. However, it was his pupil, Frank Lloyd Wright, who went even further by introducing the open plan, as well as elements that would improve the quality of life of the worker, as well as the production.
2
6
3
9
1 4
8
32 7 5
-3000
-1500
0
1500
1800
10
1900
1950
1955
1960
TABLE
PRINTING PRESS
TYPING MACHINE
SOUNDMASKING
AIR SYSTEM
WOMEN
With the emergence of the scribe schools/offices, also appeared the first desks: the quientessential working surface that still defines offices today.
Invented in China five centuries before Gutemberg, the mass production of books in the West represented the end of offices in monasteries.
Facilitated the introduction of women to the office world. Whereas before 1870 the US census only registered a 2.5% presence of women in offices, it rapidly increased over the next few decades reaching 52% by 1930 and 81.3% in 2010.
A sound-machine that produces noise of exactly the opposite frequency of the noise that is being produced hoping to produced so called white, pink or grey noises. By masking the original sound source with opposite frequencies the overall noise can be reduced.
Coincidentally, the Larkin Building in Buffalo, was designed with its own ventilation system to prevent having to open windows to the toxic fumes and noises of the nearby railway tracks… the predecessor of Air conditioning.
Whereas they might represent four fifths of the labour force in office, on average only 20% of the world’s companies have female senior managers. Russia, Latvia and Indonisia all hover at around or above 40 % of companies with women in senior positions, however, the US, the EU and Japan average between 10% and 20%.
ELEVATOR The invention by Otis of the elevator meant that higher buildings could be built, improving vertical circulation.
1965
Studio Offices Research report FRANK DUFFY ERA
CLIVE WILKINSON ERA
Frank Duffy known for implementing the paradigm of an open office now advocates a sustainable and multifunctional 24/7 office. This idea provokes criticism. First‘s initiatives deprived employers of personal space and now they might end in deprivation of personal time and workplace.
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After working for Gehry, the South-African born LA based architect changed the interior landscapes of offices forever. Whilst experimenting with the idea of the Playtime Office for Chiat/Dia, he discovered that dynamic, bright and open office spaces that would actually feel good to be in, would de-incentivize employees from working from home.
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1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
SPACE AGE
PC
GLOBALIZATION
HOT DESKING
9/11
We had to go out to space, and see the earth as a whole round element to understand our place within it, and appreciate the human scale.
The development of the personalized computer, meant that the previous figure of the secretary for each worker was not as crucial for the workings of an office, allowing for employees to have individual autonomy.
Emerging economies gaining weight at a global scale are changing the way office culture is taking. Fluency in Mandarin, business trips to Sao Paulo are combined with other western traditions.
A system generally regulated by a company’s intranet, where the employee does not have a fixed workstation but rather moves from one to the next depending on availability at a given time. This allows to maximize the use of workstations and reduce the number of empty desks.
The office as such disappears. It becomes more of a temporary place, a fluid station, not a permanent monolith for a company.
2010
OCCUPY MOVEMENT Challenging systemns, hierarchies and redefining the commons. What brings us together as a city, as a society are cores that are being question all over the world, an attitude of social and spatial flexibility that is also reflected on the workspace.
Studio Offices Research report
The evolution of offices
Office
Opus + Facere Work + Do
/ OFFICe / (latin): “A room, set of rooms, or building used as a place of business for non-manual work.”
Yet, rather than non-manual work, we find a direct co-relation with the development of information technologies. Thus, our definition of office is that of a space where the individual or the collective are primarily using information technology working towards a professional goal.
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SCRIBE OFFICE
CLERICAL OFFICE
OFFICE AS a MONASTERY
In ancient Egypt, the role of the scribe became gradually institutionalized, and as such the space where the activity was performed emerged.
The origin of the modern office can be traced to the middle ages: monasteries had rooms dedicated exclusively to clerical work. Hence the origin of the word ‘clerical’, relating it to the clergy.
Over time, the office transcended the walls of the monastery, yet remained very related. The lack of electricity meant that offices were arranged around courtyards, and still very much relating to individual work, with few meeting spaces.
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4 REACHING FOR THE CLOUDS
REACHING THE CLOUDS The development FOR of new construction techniques, mainly the elevator and
CONVEYOR BELT
OFFICE FOR WORKERS
Th e development of to new construction techallowing for the first skyscrapers emerge. niques, mainly the elevator and steel frame construction, allowed to stack more floors on top of each other, allowing for the first skyscrapers to emerge.
Based on the theories of F.W.Taylor for the scientific management of the office, inspired by the factory production line, the Taylorist office appeard. And with it, the open plan.
Although the distribution was similar to the Taylorist office, for the first time a series of employee well-being techniques were introduced: ventilation systems, materials and devices to reduce the noise from the typing machines and employee cantines.
steel frame construction, allowed to stack more floors on top of each other,
Circulation
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Socializing space
Manager’s position
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STALIN’S DREAM
WESTERN MODERNISM
SOVIET MODERNISM
Promoting the magnificiency of the new regime, Stalin built a series of office buildings in Moscow (known as the seven sisters), unninovative in distribution, yet ostentatious in circulation space: almost 66% of the floor space at the former ministry of transport is dedicated to colossal circulation.
As a natural evolution of the open plan, and with developments in ventilation and lighting, by the middle of the 20th century, offices could have deeper plans than ever before encased in glass façades, increasing the density of workers.
Khrushev wanted to establish the Soviet union as a modern nation. The office buildings that emerged on Novy Arbat, Moscow, also known as the ‘open books’, presented vertical offices, full of natural light and ventilation, articulated along a central corridor, but not really giving space for open-plan but rather cellular offices.
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Studio Offices Research report
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BÜROLANDSCHAFT
STRUCTURALIST
CUBE FARM
In Europe, the open plan was taken a step further seeking to adapt, organically to the different needs of the workers. It also supposed a democratization of the space as managers shared space with workers.
Under the belief that the open-plan didn’t respect the ‘human scale’, the structuralist office proposes smaller clusters that foster a sense of community amongst workers. This ideology planted the seed to the casual office, which emerged two decades later.
In an attempt to diminish the negative impact of the open-plan, yet maximizing the space use on the office floor, the cubicle was introduced, providing more privacy to workers thanks to 6 feet tall screens. courtyard and scarce meeting spaces.
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BRAVE NEW WORLD
PLAYTIME OFFICE
AQUARIUM WORLD
Based on the oil crisis in 1973, a new form of office emerged in Northern Europe. All the workers were given individual offices, cheaper to heat, and the focus went to social spaces where workers would interact with one another, building a sense of community within the company.
Just before the end of the cold war and the arrival en masse of the Internet, new attitudes towards traditional office behavior were challenged: personalized workspaces, flexible working hours and a relaxed dresscode were introduced in bright colorful environments that had multiple venues to socialize.
Expensive rents meant that a large part of the working force had to be in open plan to maximize space use. However, with the appearance of the middle manager — too senior to be in the open plan but too mundane to have a large private office, the aquarium was introduced.
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OFFICE ONLINE
THE CITY IN THE OFFICE
THE OFFICE AS a CLUB
The emergence of the internet allowed for creating an increasingly flexible working landscape, where employees did not have to be present everyday, and were also allowed to work from the distance, via the internet. This typology supposed the introduction of systems like ‘hot-desking’.
Triggered by the long working hours of programmers in Silicon Valley, offices acquired new facilities: from bedrooms, to leisure and retail opportunities... Leaving the office becomes almost unnecessary. Often these offices are located outside urban centers, depending on shuttle busses.
An innovation in terms of time, co-working spaces reproduce the model of gyms, and multiple stakeholders share a space. Right now there are particularly popular among creative jobs due to the rapid change in personnel in this sector, however it is rapidly expanding to other sectors such as law and finance.
19 OCCUPY THE OFFICE Based on equalitarian principles and creating a feeling of community, as well as a balance between private and personal life, the workspace has become increasingly flexible and experimental. a venue where social and special hierarchies are questioned and diffused.
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OFFICE ATLAS OF MOSCOW
Offices Strelka research report
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Most of the footprint of Moscow offices are located within the Garden Ring. Rest of the office stock is spread across the 1070 km2 of Moscow’s territoty. In 2012 the decision was made to stop building office centers in the Garden Ring. That coincided with the development of New Moscow plans. According to Cushman & Wakefield current office supply is 20% larger than demand. That becomes very obvious in the grade a class office vacancy rates. However apart from formal office classification there are many small local scale offices located in the periphery of the sleeping districts — an untapped potential.
Future office expansion in Moscow
Highrise Former Industrial Zones
New Moscow
Offices Strelka research report
Moscow office footprint and distribution Office buildings Office space integrated in the microrayon dwelling blocks
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50% 30% ?
Offices Strelka research report Comparison of rent and vacancy rate of global Grade a offices
Grade A office rent and vacancy rates
MOSCOW
City of London Canary Wharf London Docklands
CHICAGO Chicago Loop Near North Side LOS-ANGELOS Downtown Financial District Century City South Coast Metro Downtown Glendale Newport Center
NEW YORK Midtown Manhattan Lower Manhattan Downtown Brooklyn Long Island City
SHANGHAI
Moscow International Business Center
LONDON
The Bund People’s Square Jing’an District Xujiahui
PARIS La Défense MADRID
ISTANBUL
BEIJING
AZCA CTBA
Levent Maslak
Beijing CBD Beijing Financial Street TEL AVIV
BANGKOK
Ayalon City
Sathorn Bang Kho Laem Asoke
DUBAI Downtown Burj Dubai Business Bay
MEXICO Paseo de la Reforma Santa Fe Polanco
grade A office rent $/m2 year 2012 1600 1400
MUMBAI
Paulista Avenue Brooklin Vila Olímpia Downtown São Paulo Alphaville
LAGOS
JOHANNESBURGH
Lagos Island Victoria Island Eko Atlantic
Central Business District Sandton Midrand
1200 1000 800 600 400 200 0 10 20
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30 40 vacancy rate % 2012
Grade a offices in Moscow
Central Yau Tsim Mong Admiralty Wan Chai JAKARTA
Bandra Kurla Complex Nariman Point
SAO PAULO
Grade B+offices in Moscow
HONG KONG
SINGAPORE Downtown Core/Central Area
Thamrin Sudirman Senayan Area
SEOUL
TOKYO
Yongsan Gangnam
Akasaka Ikebukuro Roppongi Marunouchi Nihonbashi Nishi-Shinjuku Shibuya Shiodome
SYDNEY Sydney CBD Parramatta
Offices Strelka research report
69 out of top 100 Forbes list have HQs in Moscow
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Grade B offices in Moscow
Office clusters Creative clusters Business parks CBD Business centers
Offices Strelka research report Office stock, vacancy and new construction in Moscow
Office rent by district Average rent rate, $ sq.m./year
new construction 2013
143 — 356
vacant areas
356 — 570
office stock
570 — 783 783 — 997 997 — 1210
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Number of cars in the morning 8-10am moving towards center
Number of cars in the evening 6-8pm moving towards periphery
Studio Offi Offices ces Strelka researchreport report Research
High
High
Low
Low
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Indicators to attract global business actors: Accessibility to retail and public catering services
Indicators to attract global business actors: Accessibility to culture and entertainment services
Factors such as attractive urban environment attract highly skilled workforce, and so new businesses. There are set of spatial and programmatic urban indicators that play a role: proximity and accessibility; open and green space; amenities; mixed use quarters. These factors differ for different types of companies
Core area of Moscow is highly developed in terms of accessibility to retail, recreation, and office space. However it is not very attratcive in terms of accessibility.
What is the fastest way to work in the mornings 8-10am?
What is the fastest way to come home from the work 6-8pm?
51.2%
39.8%
9%
17.8%
46.4%
35.8%
by car
same
public transport
by car
same
public transport
Studio Offices Research report
Case Studies Moscow City Location: site border lines are Presnenskaya emb., 1st Krasnogvardeyskaya St., the Third Transport Ring Area: 0.6 sq. km Construction year: 1992 — expected to be completed by 2020 Architect: Gennadiy Lvovich Sirota, studio Nr 6 that is part of Mosproject-2. Every building plot has its own investor and architect. Grade: A Rental rate: 900 $/sq.m. per year
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View from Tarasa Shevchenko embankment
‘How many people live here?’ We asked as our host ushered us through Imperia Tower, a building made up of a mix of offices and flats. ‘Well,’ she replied ‘around half of the flats are sold, but only 1.5% of them are inhabited... however, almost a third of the office floors are occupied!’. The tour continued around floors of bare concrete finished off with magnificent views, untouched since construction finished three years ago. The low occupancy rate is not the weirdest feature of this ghost tower. With a 40% vacancy rate in its offices, hovering well above Moscow’s average of 15%, Moscow City is still largely vacant. Perhaps this is not surprising, considering it is still very much a construction site. The Moscow International Business Center, Moscow-City to its friends, has had many lives, many ambitions and many purposes in its short existence. a highly dense square kilometer, nestled next to the Moskva river, just outside the Ring Road, in the Presnensky District; in other words, a mere four kilometers away from the Kremlin, the home of national political power. Indeed, city politics will eventually be even closer: both the City Hall and the City Duma of Moscow will be housed onsite, just underneath the Mercury Tower, Europe’s tallest skyscraper. As the chief architect of many of the towers that have mushroomed in this new area, Philip Nikandrov, told us, Moscow City has probably been one of the most affected areas in terms of political turbulence, the economic downturn and exuberance in the country. 20-million-dollar penthouses remain empty; there is fierce competition over the development of the same plot, due to changing regulations; the rise and fall of global corporations has contributed to changes in ownership; as was the case with plot number four. Even the, hit-and-miss giant, M tower, that was supposed to house numerous pieces of council administration, remains empty; the brainchild of the former mayor of Moscow, Luzhkov, notorious for his dubious architectural taste.
Conceived right after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the collapse of Soviet Communism, the 12 billion dollar project emerged from an old stone quarry relatively close to the center. It was designed to suite the new capitalist identity of a city that had been the cultural and economic capital for the Communist world for over half a century. Socialist murals gave way to advertisement banners, communist slogans became cheesy taglines for new developments, Moscow City went from collectivism to corporatism, from corruption to… well, corruption stayed: according to Nikandrov, Moscow city is probably the only place in the world where an unfinished tower, Federation tower, is already occupied (the bottom third) while construction continues above. But the C-word can be seen throughout the site, and it is evolving. For example: the constant back-and-forth trading of plots among landlords, or the ever changing legislation, often designed to favor those plots owned by companies or oligarchs close to Luzkhov or the Kremlin. This situation has resulted on an endless list of proposals and plans for probably the most thought about plot of land in modern Moscow: Wedding Palaces, Aquaparks, pyramids and vertical malls have all been planned in this small plot of land primarily destined for offices. The master plan was designed by Mosprojects, and is served by two stations (Vystavochnaya — formerly known as Delovoi Tsentr — and by Mezhdunarodnaya). Construction began on a third station (Dorogomilovskaya), but due to the financial crisis, was never completed. This ‘city within a city’ will eventually be linked to Vnukovo, Sheremetyevo and Domodedovo airports by a Rapid Train System, linking Moscow-City to the rest of the world by 2020, when experts, developers and landlords hope to finish the complex. Let’s hope homeowners, corporations and shoppers also get the memo and move in to this landscape iconic of contemporary Russia.
Studio Offices Research report
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The Office Strelka research report
Case Studies Novy Arbat Location: Novy Arbat St., 11, 15, 19, 21 Area: one tower 46 956 sq. m; total area of four office towers: 187 824 sq. m Construction year: 1962-1968 Architect: Posokhin, Mdoyants, Makarevich, Tkhor, Ayrapetov, Pokrovsky, Popova, Zaytseva Grade: B, B+ Rental rate: 728-980 $/sq.m. per year
Office building on Novy Arbat st.
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“This is not a passport!?” The woman who runs entrance to the easternmost high-rise, is clearly upset about the non-Russian ID-card, and is unwilling to let us in, even though we have booked a meeting with the travel agency on the eighth floor. It is fascinating how the retail behind the gates survives without having any street presence, and with a stereotypically unfriendly soviet-minded security service at the entrance. The function of the four skyscrapers has changed radically from representative and purely administrative functions during the Soviet era, to a rather unexpected mix of retail, services and small scale offices. To some extent, it resembles the informal retail you can find in high-rises in
dense Asian cities, obviously it was never intended to be there. Until the end of the Soviet Union, eight administrative departments were located in the skyscrapers; two in each building. The ministries were the administrative organs of the classic Soviet industries: the electro-technical industry, the energy and heavy machine building industry, the transport manufacturing industry, the ministry for construction and the ministry for traffic and public utilities. The majority of these ministries no longer exist. The long retail block on the ground floor was dedicated to pedestrians, home to mainly leisure and retail business, that element has remained. Novy Arbat evokes mixed feelings; amazement at the scale and concept,
Studio Offices Research report
and at the same time misery at the empty cafés (when we ordered a café latte, the café owner had to go and buy milk!), cheap plastic products and traffic jams. Disgust for the mass projects of late modernism is not uncommon, and just like may other late modernist projects from the sixties and seventies, Novy Arbat has not been too popular among Moscow’s urban audience. Novy Arbat is a typical example of the global urban change that characterized the end of the modernist movement; hello new times, goodbye old ones. a large chunk of the historical urban environment was wiped out in order to make space for the architecture of this new era. The urban intervention that happened in Novy Arbat was not unique ; similar projects happened in a large number of cities across Europe and the world. Cities finally had the time and money to realize long lived modernist dreams, tracing back to the idealistic projects of Hilbersheimer and Le Corbusier; dreams of new, clean, green and technological cities. Even though we found it cruel to destroy the historical parts of the city center; let’s not forget the context these ideals derived from; a world with
Office plan
an extreme housing crisis, dirt and poverty. Le Corbusier, when discussing ‘La Ville Radieuse’ in 1924, said: “Starting from the fourteenth storey you have absolute calm and the purest air”. It is doubtful that this is true for Novy Arbat Initially, the prospect was planned as early as 1935 to provide a link connecting the city center to Rublevskoe Shosse (were a lot of officials lived, still filled with Moscow’s elite today). But due to World War II, the project was put on hold. It is said that Khrushchev started the project again to show the
power and modernity of USSR in a competition between East and West (he had a famous motto; “To catch up and overdo America”); hence, why all the most innovative techniques and technologies were implemented in Novy Arbat. The complex was finalized in 1967, as a celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Russian Revolution. Ironically enough, it seems that Novy Arbat actually adopted American culture rather than competed with it. It has been called the Las Vegas of Moscow. Today, like anywhere else, it has a McDonalds, American diners playing Elvis Presley, Starbucks and even a Dunkin’ Donuts.
45 Functions before 1991
Functions after 1991
Interior in the office tower
Prospekt Kalinina 1977
Studio Offices Research report
Case Studies Central Telegraph Location: Moscow, Tverskaya 7 Area: 40 000 sq. m/ the whole campus 52 000 sq.m Construction year: 1926 — 1927 Architect: Ivan Rerberg Grade: B Rental rate: 510-870 $/sq.m. per year
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The word telegraph is an amalgam of two smaller words: tele and graph ("tele" — from the Greek — far, far — indicates the range of a long distance; grapho — from the Greek "writing" — means the recording, reproducing something) In the 1930s the Telegraph building was the home of Soviet radio. Here on June 22, 1941 the call for war was transmitted. For many decades the building sustained the tradition of having festive illuminations in the form of moving pictures displayed on the facade of Central Telegraph Office. In 1980 during the Moscow Olympics a new building by architects N. Sheverdyaev, VI Utkin and AP Melikhov was built in the heart of the site, which was stylistically unified with the main building.
Telegraphists' workplace
View on the Telegraph building from Tverskaya st.
The Current role of the building: a juxtaposition of governmental, business and non-commercial organizations. Users: employees, visitors, tourists, hipsters, officials, kids. Problems: design/construction/property restrictions due its architectural heritage, a lack of parking The Wall In the 17th century the site of the current Central Telegraph was a homestead owned by one of the many branches of the Trubetsky family. In 1791 Empress Catherine presented the land to Moscow University. The University Printing House moved in soon after, part factory, part bookshop, run by the famous educator and publisher Nikolai Novikov. In its honor the nearby lane was named Gazetniy (Newspaper). Before the First World War the house was bought by ubiquitous Insurance Company "Russia" and demolished with the intention of building a complex of rental houses. But the war and the revolution destroyed their plans.
Studio Offices Research report
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Interior of the building, 2014 Dream Industries office
Studio Offices Research report
Case Studies Red October Location: site border lines are Bersenevskaya emb., Bolotnaya emb., Patriarchy bridge. Area: 169 600 sq. m Construction year: 1889 — 1914 Architect: A. V. Flodin, A. M. Kalmikov Grade: B— Rental rate: 260-742 $/sq.m. per year
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ARTStrelka, 2009
Strelka institute for media, architecture and design
In 1889, Geis, the owner of the “Ainam” company acquired several plots on the Bersenevskaya waterfront. A manufacturing building designed by the architect A. Flodin was one of the first on the site. Afterwards, architect A. M. Kalmikov erected a few industrial buildings and tenements, which formed the basis of the factory complex. In 1914, the factory compound was completed with the addition of the apartment building from a cloth factory, which was converted to garages. All in all, 23 buildings were constructed for the “Red October” factory. From 2004 an art cluster started to develop on the territory of “Red October”. In 2007 all the facilities of the chocolate factory finally moved to a new manufacturing center. Now
“Red October” is an attractive creative cluster in the heart of Moscow. The owner, the “Guta-development” company plans to reconstruct the site, while conserving some of the historical buildings and completely rebuilding the other structures.
Studio Offices Research report
“Red October” Art-History In 2004 the first stage of Patriarchal bridge was opened, it provided a convenient path to the nearest metro station (Kropotkinskaya). Since then, the art cluster started to develop. September 18, 2004 the cultural center “ARTStrelka” was opened in “Red
October”’s former garage premises and was based there until 2009. In December 2010 an international contemporary art fair “Сosmoscow” took up residence and on September 4, 2012 the contemporary art gallery “Red October” formally opened.
View from Prechistenskaya embankment
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Studio Offices Research report
Case Studies Belyaevo Location: South— East part of Moscow Area: 4.3 sq. km Construction year: 1952-1956 Architect: Yakov Belopolsky Grade: Rental rate: 450-675 $/sq.m. per year
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7th of December 1954 Nikita Khrushchev made his famous speech about “unnecessary elements” in architecture at the conference of Builders. It was a time of post-war devastation with an extreme housing shortage, which lasted for more than 50 years, so radical solutions were needed and found. All building projects were brought together in one branches of government and a massive construction company was founded. Beyond total industrialization, it was argued that “roads are not necessary”, this is clear from the relatively low density of roads in districts developed after 1954, 6% compared with 28% in the city centre. So the era of microrayon began. Millions of square meters of prefab panel housing built all over the USSR. The model worked so well that in Moscow almost all land beyond The Third Transport Ring was developed into microrayons from 50s up to the present day and the majority of population live in this type of environment. A 30-minutes trip by metro brings you from the city centre to a typical microrayon district of Moscow. There Soviet citizens could find everything he or she needed: public transport through the proximity of metro stations; kindergartens, where children could be left on the way to work; schools that children can walk to it without crossing any roads; a lot of greenery and basic shops (Perhaps not the amenity which Soviet citizen needed the most). This model was quite successful in providing an equal living environment for everyone, but now it seems outdated.
The transformation of the economic and political system that happened post 1991 has led to a drastic changes in people’s lives. Having been a country occupied mostly with heavy industry and production, Russia became more oriented around services and commerce. Shops and B2C (business to customers) offices started to pop up everywhere after 1991. In places as distinct as redesigned ground floor apartments to basements and vans. Developers reacted to the demand and in newly constructed houses there are always public functions on the ground floors, but they are suitable more for shops than for offices. The only spaces designed as offices in microrayons were research institutes. These, after the collapse of the USSR, were partly closed and their corridor structure was built in such a way that it can’t really be modified. The archetypal microrayon building doesn’t really satisfy modern requirements. The working environment is made up of small companies that can only provide low-skilled and low-paid jobs for employees. Having to deal with an uncomfortable environment has become a daily reality for people working in microrayons, but it seems acceptable for employees in extra-compact spaces like those used for offices. As a lady from underground office said: “It’s just a workplace. Only going upstairs for a smoke actually hurts me”.
↑ Insurance company office in the car ← Miklukho-Maklaya st., 1968
Studio Offices Research report
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Nikita Khrushchev, Former General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Constructions of new dwellings in Belyaevo Offices on the 1st floors of dwellings
Studio Offices Research report
Case Studies Danilovskaya Manufaktura Location: Moscow, Danilovskaya manufactory, Varshavskoe highway, 9 Area: : 106 000 sq. km Year of construction: 1867 Reconstruction: 2006-2010 Architects: Grade: B+ Rental rate: 600 $/sq.m. per year
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Interior of Danilovskaya manufaktura before reconstruction
History The name of the Danilovskaya Manufactory is closely connected with that of the Danilov Monastery which Prince Daniil Aleksandrovich, the youngest son of Aleksandr Nevsky, founded on the right bank of the River Moskva in 1282. He simultaneously built several homesteads for the monastery’s serfs. This village would grow over time into the Danilovskaya Sloboda. During the first half of the 18th century, the location first witnessed handicraft, and then machine production. In 1867, a small local dye works was purchased by Vasily Efremovich Meshcherin, a merchant of the highest-ranking guild. That year is rightfully considered to be the year the renowned Danilovskaya Manufactory was founded. Meshcherin expanded production significantly, enhanced the production capacity of the factory and launched a complete manufacturing cycle of spinning, weaving, and dyeing.
As early as 1886, the Danilovskaya Manufactory was awarded with the gold medal at an exhibition in Nizhny Novgorod and was given permission to feature the national crest on its goods. And, in 1900, the Danilovskaya Manufactory Partnership was awarded the Persian Order of the Lion and Sun and granted the honorary title of Court Supplier to the Shah of Persia. The next boost in development came when the factory came under the management of Baron Johann Ludwig von Knoop, who launched the production of weaving looms, for which a separate casting house was then built. In 1914, the annual sales of the factory had reached 20 million rubles! During the Soviet period, the factory was nationalized and changed names several times until, in 1992, it finally regained its original name. Danilovskaya Manufactory was one of the leading cotton industry enterprises in Russia and the rest of the world.
Studio Offices Research report
Nowadays Nowadays, as part of the reorganization of Moscow’s industrial territories, KR Properties are restoring the factory’s old buildings to transform them into a unique loft quarter. Today, all buildings in the loft quarter have their own names. The largest two (44 thousand m² and 42
thousand m²) are now named after the founders of the factory — the Meshcherin Building and the Knoop Building. Others include the Ryady Soldatenkova and Gastello buildings. The latter was named after Nikolai Gastello, a Hero of the Great Patriotic War (WWII), who had worked at the factory from 1930–1932. The more compact buildings on the site have received names with a distinct manufacturing flavour: Flanelevy (flannel), Satinovy (satin), Sittsevy (calico), and Batistovy (batiste).
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Danilovskaya manufaktura Afisha-Rambler-SUP office
The Office Strelka research report
Case Studies Ministry Of Transport Location: Moscow, Rozhdestvenka 1 Area: 20.000 sq. km Year of construction: 1947-1952 Architects: Alexei Dushkin, Boris Mezencev Grade: B Rental rate: 800 $/sq.m. per year
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Entrance hall
-What is the best part of working in this building? -”That it has always been the same”, answers the current deputy CEO of Transstroн and former minister of transport Sbitnev Vasilyi Ivanovich who has been working in this building for more than 40 years. Entering one of the seven rooms for the CEO’s of the office of Transstroy, is like stepping in to a time machine, which throws you back to the glory days of Soviet Union. The shiny wooden meeting table, the small flags, the mahogany pen stand and the relief world map hanging behind the back of the CEO. One wonders if the old computer display is there for decoration, and if it has ever been used, since it is on a distance from the chair which would make it impossible to work with. -How many square meters do you use? -”Only 7000 square meters. The rest of the building is empty”, — replies Mr Sbitnev Vasilyi Ivanovich. “The building wasn’t built to be economically sustainable. There is a lot of excess space, like the entrance hall and many other representative areas.” The main hall has a ceiling height of 7,6 meters, and is decorated with marble and large chandeliers. For the rest of the building an artificial type of marble is used. The Ministry of Transport is one of the Stalin’s Sisters, the seven skyscrapers that were gift to Moscow from Stalin himself. The skyscrapers became a manifestation of how politically representative architecture became vertical. Traces of the idea of the Seven Sisters can be found in several projects, like the horizontal buildings around the Garden Ring by El Lizzitsky, the Manhattan Administrative building in New York, and, maybe most importantly, the writings about the idea of the skyscraper as a collective achievement. The latter became a suitable explanation for Stalin to build this gigantic project, which rather ended up as centers of power than the ideas of the collective.
One of the most curious things about the Seven Sisters is that none of the buildings were built to serve a purpose, such as administrative, residential or hotel. They were meant to become monuments, landmarks in the urban fabric of the Moscow and other cities of the former Soviet Union. In fact, that’s their legacy today — preservation of monument, evidence of an era in the history of the city and the country. The fact that the building was privatized since 24 years ago does not seem to make a difference. “I have been working in this very room for 27 years, and I treat it as a museum. Nothing has changed, not the furniture nor the details”, Mr Sbitnev Vasilyi Ivanovich explains. In the early nineties, a major renovation of the facade was done. “But it looks exactly the same”, Vasilyi Ivanovich assures. Along the ground floor, towards the street, small scale retail is lined up around the perimeter of the building. One can find sushi restaurants, a bookshop, an entrance to the metro, and in the direct access to the entrance hall is a bank service office. The two building wings, which were built independently, accommodate residential flats, where Soviet “intelligenzia” used to live — artists and scientists— but not the ministers that worked in the building.
Studio Offices Research report
Building construction, 1947
Administrative building at Krasnye Vorota
Reception area in Transstroy
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SVO
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SOC
MOSCOW CITY
TAKES OFF
Stop over city
by Liva Dudareva &Â Eduardo Cassina
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DME
Offices Strelka research report
Stop Over City “I suspect that the airport will be the true city of the 21st century. The great airports are already the suburbs of an invisible world capital, a virtual metropolis whose fauborgs are named Heathrow, Kennedy, Charles de Gaulle, Nagoya, a centripetal city whose population forever circles its notional centre, and will never need to gain access to its dark heart.” J.G.Ballard
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Offices Strelka research report
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n 2041 the Earth’s population will reach 9 billion people, three thirds of which will live in either Africa or Asia. By that point the equivalent of almost 2% of the global population, 180 million people, will pass through Moscow International Airport every year. Sheremetyevo airport, Domodedovo Airport and the Moscow International Business Centre, Moscow City to its friends, will all combine to create Moscow International, the world’s first Megaairport. An 87 km-long international transit spine beaming across the city, connecting all three elements into one operational and logistic wonder. Profiting from its enviable geographic location, between Europe, Asia and Middle East, Moscow has the potential to be a natural hub for transnational business and travellers. However, connections between flights arriving and departing from different airports mean that most passengers
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Studio Offices Research report
Stop Over City need visas, which involve an expensive and lengthy process, including complicated registration forms and long passport control queues. This set up is also unattractive for transcontinental trade; the strict customs checks limit the amount of samples that business people can bring for meetings in town. Furthermore, they limit the inherent spontaneity of potential business meetings. By 2041, the World will be more connected than ever before. How well a city connects and facilitates the flows of goods, people, and information will determine its success on the global
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SVO
29 million passengers per annum 218 destinations 42 km from the Kremlin
SOC
40% vacancy rate 400000 workspaces by 2020 6 km from the Kremlin
DME
30 million passengers per annum 378 destinations 45 km from the Kremlin
stage.
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oscow City was born out of the ruins left by the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1992. It was meant to be the new business centre of the Russian capital. Yet, after only six years , during the early years of democracy, with a cash-starved government, the Moscow City Duma (the City Council) decided to sell the land on which the development sits. The towers, subject to ever-changing legislation and increasing heights, only started to surface at the turn of the Millennium. Soon, however, they were shooting up at full speed, making Moscow City the second most densely populated area on Earth, with a land use coefficient of 5.8, which can only be compared with Song Dong in South Korea. With the recession of 2008, many projects came to a halt, the demand for office space plummeted and, a few years later, so did the governmental support for the development of the infrastructure of Moscow City. This created a delay in the construction of the towers, which exacerbated the already high vacancy rate, leading to an average rate of 40% in 2014, double that of the rest of the city (reaching as
high as 66% in some towers). The supply clearly outstripped the demand. Today, in 2014, Moscow City is a deserted island within the city, a chaotic and phantasmagorical business centre still under construction. The figures and current business model force private investors and government officials to abandon what was once the symbol of Russia’s full commitment to capitalism. As I write these very words, thousands of new square meters of offices are being built in Moscow, more modern than many of the towers in Moscow City, some of which were designed over a decade ago. The future
of the Moscow City is very much up in the air … … literally! n order to give Moscow City a competitive edge, We propose incorporating the business district with the international transit
I
area of Moscow’s mega airport: linking Sheremetyevo and Domodedovo airports and Moscow City with a high speed train that is able to bridge the 87km gap between them. The former airports, would be baptized ‘Terminal SVO’ and ‘Terminal DME’, and would meet halfway in what was formerly known as the Moscow International Business Centre/Moscow City, but would become ‘Terminal SOC’ — StopOver City. a true business hub, supported by retail and long and short term residential facilities, all in the international transit zone of the airport. Yet, still, in the centre of the city. In a similar fashion to most international transit areas, terminals SVO, DME and SOC will be visa free enclaves, alas, the latter, would be situated a few kilometres from the Kremlin. No more than half an hour from landing in Moscow and a traveller from Montevideo could be in meetingroom on the 24th floor of Federation Tower; a trader could bring a multitude of samples to show at the Exhibition Centre without customs concerns; an Angolan passenger on
Studio Offices Research report
a 12 hour stopover with a connecting flight to Narita could enjoy a trip to the cinema in the SOC and check in at the Novotel conveniently located inside the enclave; a political refugee could take a one-way ticket to Moscow International airport on the spot, and then consider her next move while staying in the SOC. The SOC would operate as both a business centre and an airport transit terminal: a zone that escapes national jurisdiction, but also an international area serviced by international corporations. a hub supported by a fluid program that would underpin the daily routine of the several thousand people that would go through those corridors everyday. Due to security and migration concerns, the terminal at the centre of Moscow International Airport, overlooking the Moskva river would be fenced off from the rest of the Russian Capital. However, it would be fitted with passport control posts that would allow for the entrance of authorized daily commuters that would work in its offices and shops. Residents of this area, which would be outside the jurisdiction of the duma, would also be provided with similar access cards. Much like today, the geometries of power would be expressed and regulated throughout this space by means of access: in a Deleuzian fashion this would establish legitimacy. The SOC would connect to the large and iconic Moscow metro through the SOC (COK in Russian) station, formerly known as Delovoy Tsentr. Travellers, who wish to enter or exit the metro network here, would need to present the adequate documents: a passport with the appropriate visa or a security clearance card. Last minute meetings for whitecollar professionals based in London, Doha or Shanghai, who fly to Moscow International just for the day to sign off their latest deal, would be the norm, and not the exception, in this lively terminal complex. Moscow International Airport would become a terminus and a carrefour, an end and a transition, a non-
lieu and a lieu-de-mémoire.
T
he fluidity of this space would even allow for different realities to converge. It would become increasingly hard to think of reasons why would one ever need or want to leave the SOC. It would gain international relevance for being a duty free zone in the heart of the city. As the offices began to specialize in high frequency trading and commodities exchange, new facilities would emerge, such as server buildings. The availability of elements to unfold a daily routine within the confines of Terminal SOC would attract many airport strands, individuals who would decide to move into this limbo between arrivals and departures. Having been abandoned economically and socially Moscow City would become a global financial center, traveller hangout, an international meeting room , all at the same time. Yet this beautiful vision would also allow for numerous loop-holes to emerge: the price of the already upmarket apartments would skyrocket after they being included in an international zone; It would force people taking shelter in SOC, both physically and judicially into a kind of administrative limbo; the SOC might even make headlines as a haven for criminals and tax evaders. Schools, supermarkets, dwellings, greenspaces, atria; the towers would be inhabited by a diverse array of both spaces and people: a mixture of everyday urban inhabitants and those on the move: Whistleblowers, asylum seekers, everyday workers, tourists, residents, climate refugees, trillionaires, tax evaders, travellers, utopists and stateless citizens. This situation would create multiple layers of people. It would be an international enclave for business, employing more than 500
000 people — all residents of Moscow, with industries stretching from commercial business to the provision of services to server technicians. The vertical occupation of the space — skyscrapers — would no longer be a self-contained lobotomized unit with different programs: it would become an extension of the horizontal spread of different activities. The spatial hierarchy would be dissolved into a layering of the different activities, with numerous managerial and servicing stations scattered throughout the buildings. Online retail hubs would coexist with flexible office spaces. Office spaces themeslves would be supported by servers allowing high frequency trading. The scarcity of open
61 spaces, and the harsh climate conditions would result in indoor solutions. oscow International would become the World’s first mega-airport, managed by a private corporation. It would represent an apparent fluidity and programmatic porosity, locked in a self-reproducing network: A network that extends beyond the nation-state, a network that facilitates symbiosis and parasitism; a network that has penetrated the invisible wall between the real and the virtual; an invisible network that connects independently working bubbles into a foam; a foam that has dissolved the power that once created it. The SOC would become a nonplace that physically embodies that connection: landscapes repeated ad-infinitum each holding individual stories. Moscow City would finally take off.
M
To watch Stop Over City video go to vimeo.com/95434739
GENPLAN AS A KEY TOOL FOR THE CITY DEVELOPMENT INTERVIEW WITH
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Interview
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KARIMA NIGMATULINA
Genplan is a crucial part of the city's urban routines. It defines its development paths and future plans. How Genplan operates in Moscow and what is its structure and aims. We asked Karima Nigmatulina, Acting Director at the Institute of Master Planning for the City of Moscow.
Studio Offices Research report
The Institute for Master-planning for the city of Moscow is a publicly owned enterprise. The government owns it, but they still make profit. “We participate in proposals and competitions announced by the Architectural Committee led by chief architect of Moscow, Sergey Kuznetsov. We are a main player in this field, since we have experts in all domains of urban planning, and around eight hundred employees. We are also responsible for making the gen-plan for Moscow. There are various documents that dictate how the city moves forward. The three main ones are: — The gen-plan — Zoning plan — The law for norms All design documents go to public hearings and then to the GZK (city-planning and land commission) for approval. You can update the gen-plan as much as you want, and that is what you are supposed to do. It is a live document. All the changes go to public hearings, and then they become incorporated in the law. This is something that is unique to Moscow. In other parts of the world, the equivalent documents don’t get the status of law. In the last gen-plan for 2010, there were around 70.000 comments after the public hearing that all had to be looked over. The gen-plan was available online before being finalized and reviewed. It is our long-term planning document. The current gen-plan remains law until the next one is introduced; at least that is how it is meant to be. But now, we are in a difficult position, because we don’t have a gen-plan which covers the additional territory of New Moscow. But, this is just a temporary situation. There is also something called “The city building codex” which is an official document that clarifies the gen-plan’s status as law. It states that gen-plan should have a 20 years span, and cover the whole city. It also defines the commercial zones with certain parameters, limiting the size, the green zones and the infrastructure. ― ―If I am a developer who owns a plot of land that I would like to make a project on, how do I do it?
Two years ago, regulation forced you to order a project design plan from the government. But, there was also something called the
GPZU (a document for the territory planning) , which meant that on a plot with defined borders, you could just check with the zoning document, what you were and weren’t allowed to build, and that was enough. On larger projects, you had to make the city order a design plan. Now the developer has the right to fund the design-plan him or herself, and show it to GZK and the Architecture Committee. ――Is there a socio-economic strategic vision for Moscow?
There is a draft of it online. It deals for example with whether to keep or remove the industrial zones. Some parts of the industrial zones are used inefficiently but still provide jobs. If they are removed, the jobs need to be made up elsewhere. What to do with industrial zones is decided in the social and economic plan, and then in the gen-plan. Some of the industrial zones are economically efficient, some, however, are not. One of our main focuses is efficiency. We look at economic effectiveness, but also at social aspects: maybe some areas are ecologically important; some could be transit points or hybrids. Some of the industrial zones are slums, which are unsafe. We then look at what is missing in the land around it; is there, for example, a shortage of schools, or a shortage of parks? Then we know what to do with it. We are aiming for multi-functionality; the areas should be for people, maximally integrated in the city fabric. In early 2016, we will have introduce public transportation for passengers, which will become a catalyser for the area. At the moment, there is a multitude of owners. We need to look at the area as a whole. There are various economic tools that can facilitate people coming together on projects that are for the best for the city. For example we can put a tax on the facilities that aren’t as the city wants them to be. That can help to motivate the landowners to build the right facilities on their plots. ――Is there an overall strategy for Moscow?
One strategy could be to have a more continuous green belt around the city, we can use the industrial zones to make that happen. This is on the most general level of the gen-plan; it is the macroscopic picture. Then we get down to the details — where what is. On this level you work with the landowners. ――Is the green connection the main strategy?
The green connection is just an example. One of the main visions is that city should be bal-
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Interview
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anced. The city currently operates with businesses in the center, and the housing is on the outskirts. In the Soviet Union, the industrial areas were sources for work, then they started to break down after the fall of Soviet Union, and all work became concentrated in the city center. As a strategic issue, the industrial zones have to be centers for work, like offices, or other sources for work. You cannot build them up with only housing, because then you will exacerbate the balance that we have. But you cannot put only offices there either, because then you create scary places to go to at night. And if you need to build housing, it needs to be comfortable housing with parks, social structures etc. That is the main objective. There are several strategies: — The green belt, which is outlined, but not decided upon. — Transportation strategy— there are missing strategic links between radial points. The industrial zones are critical for completing the road network in a logical way, partly because you cannot construct new roads in areas where people already live. They don’t want a new road outside their window. There is also the possibility of building a tramline through the industrial zones. — The capitalization of offices, and taxation on employers will help the Moscow budget. We need to decide how many offices, and what types of offices we require.
and to manoeuvre the market and think a little bit more towards the future; rather than to cut corners and save up their costs now, and then have lots standing vacant. But, I think the issue really comes down to realization. It is a little difficult at our level to make sure they plan their offices right. We just say “we need employment, a balance of people, and movement of people” ――What kind of offices, and what level of offices are you anticipating?
I am hoping to get a mixture of offices. Not all class A, but you have to have the right balance. ――What should be the driving force for developers to make more offices, and, perhaps more pertinently, the right types of office?
There are various other institutions that review the design plans for new buildings. How they are connected to the transportation network and how easy they access it is up to us. Parking may seem like a simple thing, but in many cases, it just doesn’t work. Those aspects are up to the architecture committee and the Institute for Urban Planning. Aside from that, there are further governmental authorities and independent assessors. In general, offices are a challenge for a lot of developers. They have a lot of experience in housing development. That is the sweet spot, which has been very lucrative for the past ten years. Building offices is a new thing for most developers, which they take on because the city has mandated it. Many see it as a burden that they have to deal with in Moscow, but it is not the same situation in other parts of the world. For example in Tokyo, they know how to make money on offices. And offices are not perceived that way, yet. This can undermine balance in the market. The main objection is that you cannot construct new projects in the city centre.
――Considering the plans for the International Financial Center in Moscow, which will provide more office space, and the high vacancy rates in Moscow, what will offices in the industrial zones need in the future?
It depends on what kind of office you want to build— A-grade or B-grade offices? The number of A-grade offices per capita in Moscow lags very far behind other cities like Paris, London, New York, Beijing and Shanghai. Some of the offices we have today are not appropriate for the people who are supposed to work in them. Class a offices are recent additions to the market. We have seen a shift in economy, and in the future it will be cheaper to get the office you want. Now, it is cheaper to upgrade the office that you already have, but in the long term, taking into account energy efficiency and costs for utilities, the market will adjust and become more futurecentric and indeed more relevant. But if that change doesn’t happen, there is a risk that you will just build office spaces that nobody needs. So it’s on the developers to make sure
――What positive/negative urban impact can offices have in Moscow?
ONE OF THE MAIN GENPLAN VISIONS IS THAT CITY SHOULD BE BALANCED
A difficult situation is that people from the oblast drive into the city. This is not an easy problem because we have two different governments: an urban one and one for the oblast. As they don’t sit eye to eye, it can create complications. We can also build more offices, which are accessible to pedestrians. That’s what you could achieve through better coordination, instead of just trying to improve the transportation aspect by building more transportation. You have to think about it, from more of an urban planning point of view.
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Beginning in Berlin’s Alexanderplatz, and taking in Warsaw, Ljubljana, Kharkov and Moscow, Owen Hatherley heads in search of revolt, architectural glory and horror.
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OFFICES VS THE CITY THREE STRATEGIES FOR MOSCOW TO WORK SMARTER by Linda Högberg Andersson
This project is a first attempt to think about urban planning starting point from the routines of the citizens. Why does the office grading system depart from architectural standards? Can we find a way of grading offices from a human and urban point of view? In a search for what role offices should play in urban planning, this investigation explains why any new district of moscow should become the russian Las Vegas, why some of the muscovites should work in shifts, and what new business parks can give back to the microrayons.
Studio Offices Research report
What will happen to Muscovites when offices are decentralized?
special zones in industrial belt
integrated in block grid
MKAD-the business highway
gated communities and central offices
independent business centres
New Moscow— the linear city
mix-use industrial belt
green connection If the land price raises 10 percent, that is 80 billion dollars only on expectations.
decentralized around the metro
A
few years ago, just before the financial crisis in 2008, there was a boom in office construction. a boom of such scale, that nearly all demand for office stock was fulfilled. The current surplus in office stock might even be sufficient for the near future, especially if we take into account a rather uncertain and unstable economy that is prevailing due to political turbulence. Now, we can see a slowly changing paradigm, where some office workers start to be more mobile and less dependent on their desk. At the same time we can see the archetypical office typology falling out of fashion. The new dogma in Moscow urban planning seems to be the multi-use quarter based block, where workspaces are seamlessly blended in to the urban body. In the urban planning discourse, the spotlight is on homes not offices. At the same time, a change has begun in the distribution of offices over the city’s territory: the concentration has been expanded, pushed from the city center (where the highest concentration is) through the use of rather strong political tools, towards the periphery. This has been one of the ways Moscow mayor Sobyanin has been able to solve transportation issues in Moscow; one of the most highly prioritized points on his agenda. Paradoxically enough, moving offices towards the periphery does not necessarily improve the congestion situation in the city, as the road network is less dense in the periphery, and decentralization will lead to these sparse roads
MICRORAYONS ARE NOT BUILT FOR WORK. THIS IS EVIDENT FROM A SINGLE VISIT: PEOPLE WORK IN BASEMENTS, CARS AND MANY OTHER KINDS OF INFORMAL SPACE
no more offices
?
being used by more people for longer distances. Today’s usual commute from the periphery to the city center is highly time consuming— up to 4 hours per day. How will Muscovites manage to follow their moving workplaces? To what extent is it bearable? Moving an office from the center to the periphery might force some people to commute 6 hours per day— the same time it takes to fly from NY to San Francisco, every day. Even though the commute increases, this change in office planning opens up possibilities for rethinking and improving the way we work. The new workplaces will not be the same kind of office that you would find in the center. First of all they will be better ; in principle, every move should be an upgrade. Another change is that the office will no longer be significant or important for representation and company branding. Separately, the offices on the outskirts often give more value for money in terms of architectural quality. This creates a new set of requirements for offices; they should be improved, more effective and further away from the center. What we know for certain is that this shift will radically change the routines as well as the working paradigm for the city of Moscow. So, there are two main points: a shift of paradigm for offices, and a more disparate distribution over a greater area. Taking this into account, we need to think about office planning not only from the point of view of space, but also of time. Can offices facilitate higher mobility for Muscovites? And can we provide structures to work more efficiently in places other than offices?
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Studio Offices Research report
Offices vs. The City 1
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1
Brooklaevo
2
Silicon rayon
3
Mos Vegas
Microrayons are not built for working. This is evident from a single visit: people work in basements, cars and many other kinds of informal spaces. We decided to use Belyaevo as a case study, as an archetypal microraion. It stretches over an area of 5 km2, about 1.8% of the city’s total. With the new grade a system, 11 “office-external” workspaces could be built,
around two in each quarter, amounting to about 10500m2. This might sound like a lot, but it isn’t. The calculation is based on one third of the population commuting, it also doesn’t take into account the deficit of workspaces in the microrayons. These new workspaces could be inter-weaved into the daily lives of inhabitants and would, of course, be used by the inhabit-
ants of the microrayons who don’t commute. Working would therefore become a public and a visible activity. The new working facilities could be located in the vast green areas between the building blocks which today either aren’t used at all or are misused; while, also being costly to maintain.
The K2 business park is under construction, on the border of the new Moscow borough. It consists of 74000 m2 of offices. It is representative of many of the new business parks around Moscow, with high parking rates, proximity to a highway and a suburban lifestyle. However, K2 is cut off from the rest of the district, except
from through the highway, and depends on private schools located between the park itself and the city center. Applying the new grade a principle, 110 000 m2 of residential property could be built on the surrounding fields; Creating something similar to a small neighborhood. However, social infrastructure and daily facilities will be needed too. Build-
ing a new public school or a connected kindergarten will benefit both the commuting employees and the local population. By doing this , you would follow the example set by Google in Silicon Valley, but, turn it inside out. Instead of being an all inclusive island, the office becomes the hub, the anchor, of the neighborhood.
Kommunarka business district is the largest office realty project in the Moscow region. It is located in the New Moscow territory and consists of 50,000 m2 of offices; enough to employ 18 000 people. It is not unrealistic to think about this new business district becoming the new Las Vegas of Russia, not in terms of gambling, but in terms of business. Las Vegas is one of the few places in the world with temporary facilities on that
scale (hotels, conference calls etc.), the only place that can host the biggest companies when they want to hold gatherings at the same time. Kievskaya highway is ten times larger than The Strip and could be a place “on the go”, situated between two international airports, while also being an hours drive from the Moscow city center. This area could provide accommodation for 18 500 visitors, one third of them commuters, on a lo-
cal, regional or global scale; the second largest hotel in the world, the MGM Grand, which happens to be located in Las Vegas, has a similar capacity 6....and that 3,1 million m2, which is equivalent to 6200 non-office workspaces of 500 m2, could be distributed in other parts of the city. 5. This means that new offices could be fitted with (temporary) residences and more extensive social infrastructure.
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2
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3
Studio Offices Research report
Offices vs. The City
MOBILITY—THE CONCEPT IN STEPS
1. Today’s situation, 50% of all the offices in Moscow are located on 7% of the area in the centre
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proportions of offices in the centre and periphery, m2
geographical distribution
IT IS NOT UNREALISTIC TO THINK ABOUT THE NEW MOSCOW TERRITORIES BECOMING THE LAS VEGAS OF RUSSIA — NOT IN TERMS OF GAMBLING, BUT IN TERMS OF BUSINESS
2. The planned economy and the market economy are pushing for opposite territorial distribution of offices
4. What the maximum redistribution scenario would mean in volume with the new grade a applied total 6,9 million m2 would move
centre
planned economy market economy
+ 3. If offices would be equally distributed over the city, 6,9 million offices would move from the centre to the periphery +150% residential with temporary functions
45% not conventional offices**
3,8 million m2
6,9 million m2 5,7 million m2
centre
55% normal offices*
3,1 million m2
* Calculation based on Knoll report 2013 ** Not conventional offices can be retail, libraries, public workshops — not offices
+Social infrastructure
Studio Offices Research report
5. This means that the new offices will be grouped with (temporary) dwelling and social infrastructure...
6....and that 3,1 million m2, which equals 6200 non-office workspaces of 500 m2, can be distributed in the other parts of the city.
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Studio Offices Research report
A sneak preview of the future Sweet memories of the top manager
The Avilov brothers success story The (in)famous brothers initiated their business model of a trance café workspace in the open studio in Mitino. They became local superstars and are now copied all over Moscow.
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First world problem: Young parents in dilemma
Dear diary... Confessions from the dacha Today I worked from my dacha.. Or actually I didn’t. But maybe tomorrow. I should pay a visit to the office soon.
Note from banker I don’t believe in this mobility fuzz. Why can’t we work the way we always have?
Private school or more time? “I really would like to have my kids where I work. But how can I be sure that the school next to the office is what I want? It seems practical though..” Ivan, 34
The new commuter Interview with Soraya, one of the former employees in Moscow city centre. Soraya is an IT specialist. After her office moved to a new urban grade A, her life changed, and she started to commute weekly to deal with the travel time that became six hours instead of three. “Actually, I started seeing going to work as an excursion. It was weird from the beginning, but now I get a lot of things done in a short time -meetings reports, etc. I stay one or two nights in the office apartment, and then I just leave and do my other stuff from my home office”
I remember the good old days from 2014, when the residences of us bosses were decisive for where to locate the office. Those were the days. Now everybody seem to work wherever.
2018: Offices disappeared and took their employees with them. What happened to the 100 companies in Novy Arbat? Anyone knows? No? Hello...?
The new headline: No deadline In our new grade a office, we provide all you need. Kindergarten, housing, shower, postal service. Come and leave as you wish. Up to you when and how to work— no more deadlines, but you work on commission. The new premises are close to the Kievskaya highway— if you would ever want to leave. Yours truly, Executive director
2020, How the traditional office became normcore The lawyers’ thirst for bubble tea and micro-brewed beer chased hipsters out of the creative clusters. The new, alternative generation of workers are in search for the authentic and robust workspace.
2015: Moscow in kids crisis Kindergartens are full, and the time it takes to wait in line, make the children already grown up before entering. Furthermore, only registered Muscovites can use the kindergartens. Plans of giving all office employees access to new grade a office kindergartens are giving citizens hope for the future. “We see that this is a winwin situation, both for parents who can get access to kindergarten, and for commuters in general, since less detours will be taken on the way to work” says a representative of Moscow government.
Studio Offices Research report
The new generation of shift workers:
AD: The story of the couple who managed career and love (Mos Air B’nB pro)
Love issues: How to survive a distance relationship
“Maybe it’s weird, but I like working really intense sometimes, and then just go back to normal life and recover as if nothing happened.” says Ludmilla, 29, working as a consultant, member of the shift-office movement.
“Go to visit him in weekends and holidays. And make sure to call everyday on regular times”, is the advice of the relationship expert, trying to help Muscovites finding harmony in their mobile lives.
Who’s the boss now? Adina, who used to run a hairdresser salon on the 24:th floor Novy Arbat got evicted. The government said they would provide her with a new office outside of the city, but that meant loosing all of her clients. Instead, she started an online sales company from home— and she earns millions.
2015, Traffic scandal 2019: Wild night in New Moscow The 200 companies that met for the urban planning conference in New Moscow got mashed up with the fifa-fans coming to see the big tournament— they had both planned the after-party in the same hotel, the renowned MGM Las Moscow. “It was a fun, but rather unexpected night. High heels and footballs were flying”, says Pierre 42, from France, who attended the conference.
The office boom in the outskirts have led to mass congestion. “I started going to work in my trailer, because if there was an unexpected deadline, I wouldn’t reach home before having to return.”
Lifehacker’s top five reasons to work outside the office: 1. Having lunch naked 2. Getting tanned meanwhile 3. Not seeing your boss 4. Your boss not seeing you 5. Spend time with friends who also work
Lisa and Andrey were newly married and bought a house in Korolyov when circumstances changed. Lisa’s old office closed down, but she was offered a new and better position on the other side of town. “I needed to live close to work” Lisa explains, “Luckily Andrey could start working remotely, otherwise we’d have to live separately. We found an apartment through Mos Air Bn’B pro. It feels funny to live in a new place— it is nice to have a change. I wonder how the guys are doing in our flat, if everything will be the same when we come back in a year”
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MICRORAYON 2.0 WHY THE PERIPHERY IS THE FUTURE OF WORKSPACE by Luba Russkikh
Development of new offices in microrayons will not only create new jobs providing opportunity to work near home, but also will improve quality of urban environment for inhabitants of this territories and foster knowledge workers productivity.
Altufievo, proposal Studio forOffices a new model of business Research center report in microrayon, that will revitalize the urban environment of the periphery
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Microrayon 2.0
50%
1 M2 PER YEAR, $
$150
of all a and B grade offices in Moscow are located in a 5 km radius from the city centre, i.e.
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inside The Third Transport Ring. At the same time this territory has the highest rental rates, up to 1400$ per sq.m. a year, as well as a prohibition on new construction. That’s why zones for new development are now moved to the outskirts, mostly areas in the West, very often near MKAD, beyond the city border, in the emptier districts of Greater Moscow. Many of them are developed as business parks. According to a Jones Lang LaSalle report from 2012, business parks with a vacancy rate of about 4-11% were the most successful paradigm for developers as well as being more attractive for tenants. For example, the first business park in Moscow, Krylatsky Hills, which was built in 2004, not only doesn’t have any vacant space but also has a long waiting list for potential tenants. The park is situated in the Western part of the city, a 2,5 km distance from metro station Krylatskoe. Because of the location the landlord charges low rental rates and provides large amounts of parking for tenants; on the other hand this remoteness from public transport makes it necessary to have shuttle buses for employees (the only way to get to the business park without a car) and creates a constant shortage of parking spaces. Although Krylatsky Hills has 1400 parking lots on its territory, occupying around 20 000 sq m around the buildings it’s still not enough and two to three rows of cars line the road all the way to the business park chaotically. Furthermore, this remoteness and transport situation affects the environment inside the business park. Except for a couple of cafes, most of the windows on the ground floors are closed, which creates a monotonous landscape lacking typical urban qualities.
$1400
All a and B grade offices
Rental rates and new office construction
Business park Krylatsky Hills
Business park Krylatsky Hills, parking lots
Business park Krylatsky Hills, satellite view
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94%
of Moscow population live beyond the central administrative district (outside The Third Transport Ring). According to official data, the areas with the highest population density are located on the outskirts, mostly in the Northern, Eastern, and Southern parts of the city. The main building typology in these areas is the microrayon. The equality of living conditions and the pedestrian accessibility of principal pieces of urban infrastructure, like kindergartens, schools, hospital and the metro stations, had made microrayons a dream for both citizens and city’s authorities, when they were first constructed. It was a period with a drastic housing shortage and this model was quite successful in providing separate flats in modern buildings for thousands of people. Since the type was designed for a society moving towards communism, there were almost no office spaces. Now the situation has changed and people use different ways to find a space for work. For example, they work in renovated ground floor apartments, in shopping centres, where there are devoted floors for offices, in basements and vans. All of these locations don’t meet the requirements of a modern office space and that’s why are occupied only by small companies, which can’t afford better conditions for employees, and in such offices people usually do low paid jobs which require few skills. At the same time it is a very important characteristic of mass housing in Russia that it has a diverse population with different levels of income and education, in fact people, who work in offices and business parks, live all over the city in microrayons.
Business centre, Pervomayskaya metro station
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population density microrayons
Population density and microrayons
Office of the deputy of the region, Mitino
Typical microrayon, Belyayevo
Studio Offices Research report
Microrayon 2.0
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In other words, office development in Moscow is concentrated in the centre and West part of the city while the most populated regions are located in the East, South and North and in areas , which have no suitable spaces for modern offices. Having said that business parks are the most successful model for development, we can further define their major benefits. As is usual for real estate it’s all about location. Because of its remoteness from the city centre rental rates are much lower (it can be as much as three times lower for office space of the same quality) and developers are free to build new structures and implement new engineering systems, systems that are crucial to the modern office. It is also much easier to find an empty plot in the outskirts, which gives the opportunity to provide vast amounts of parking, a highly valuable commodity among tenants. Also, regarding car users, locations in the outskirts helps to avoid the daily traffic jams that dominate central Moscow every morning, allowing a more efficient commute. Most of these benefits are entailed by the remote location, but it’s interesting to note that offices are being built mostly in empty areas separated from highly populated regions while 90% of urban microrayons have not only the same qualities because of their remote location, but also have very good connections to the metro network, diverse populations and great potential for redevelopment. The grand economic shift from industry to services made microrayons unpopular and boring, but this type of urban environment could benefit from the current shift towards the knowledge economy. Nowadays companies, focused on the production of new ideas, try to build city-like environment inside their campuses or offices because it is considered that these conditions are optimal for innovation and fostering productivity. For example, the campuses of companies like Google and Facebook have inner streets, plazas, various cafes and services not directly connected with the work process. Corporations do their best to provide everything that is needed inside the campus so employees don’t have to leave its territory and therefore they can devote all their time to work. Microrayons provide vast possibilities for creating a vibrant city environment, which is deemed so valuable for productive work. They already have a diverse population and existing transport and service infrastructure. What they lack is a diversity of functions and high quality spaces. Although, existing buildings are not suitable for public spaces because of their low ceilings and small-span structure, thanks to Soviet regulations and planning traditions microrayons have the potential for redevelopment: in some
cases it’s feasible to add one or two storeys even without reinforcement of foundations, and very often there are vast empty spaces which could be adapted for new functions. What if we could combine the qualities that offices need and the potentials that microrayons have? What kind of locations do we need for future development? The first priority for companies choosing a location is good transport accessibility. While, the best territories in this respect are in the city centre, there are still some areas beyond the centre where transport accessibility is quite good. To reduce the commute it’s more efficient to build offices near existing concentrations of people. Now this includes areas on the Western, Northern and Southern outskirts. The third factor is concentration of companies. Let’s take as a reference the successful example of business park Krylatsky Hills. There they have 13 companies which occupy 72 000 m2; we can consider this amount of space to be sufficient for creating a community of companies. It is also important to take into account existing offices. The evolution of Moscow has lead to high-profile functions developing typically in the West. Now this part of the city is filled with universities, elite housing and offices, while the East is left with the industrial zones and mass housing for the majority of the population. The process of developing districts is tightly connected with existing operations. Banks require success stories in order to consider a project to be a secure investment. This creates a certain inertia in further construction and makes it very difficult to maintain a balance between two parts of the city. So, the city should provide some incentives for developers to create these first successful projects. The development of new office spaces in microrayons will be beneficial for its inhabitants even if they are not employees in the tenant companies. Currently, all microrayons are almost identical; the difference in perception of the city only concerns the centre and the periphery. On the other hand, by inserting new businesses into microrayons it would be possible to give them unique identities and create different clusters with diverse environments and industries. It could create spaces for different types of work (indoor and outdoor, corporate and coworking, for small and big companies) and new services, which require high population density to exist. This development also could include businesses that could address the needs of local inhabitants (creating sport facilities, playgrounds for kids and spaces for teenagers, gardens, libraries etc.). So this new type of development would be beneficial for employees, companies and local citizens.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF NEW OFFICE SPACES IN MICRORAYONS WILL BE BENEFICIAL FOR ITS INHABITANTS EVEN IF THEY ARE NOT EMPLOYEES IN THE TENANT COMPANIES
Studio Offices Research report
Qualities of urban environment in microrayons and business parks
HOW TO MERGE BENEFITS OF MICRORAYONS AND BUSINESS PARKS TO CREATE BETTER ENVIRONMENT FOR WORK?
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Diverse population
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Empty spaces
Basement offices
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$ $$ $ Connection with metro network
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$ $ $$ $$ $ $
Low skilled, low paid jobs only
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NEW NEW NEW
New construction NEW NEW NEW
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Efficient traffic connection
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Microrayon 2.0 LOCATIONS FOR OFFICE DEVELOPMENT
Altufievo
Otradnoe
Pervomayskaya
Perovo
80 Mariino Chertanovskaya
Shipilovskaya
good public transport accessibility high population density existing offices RUSSIA GDP AND NEW OFFICE CONSTRUCTION AFTER 2012: EXPECTED VOLUME
Russia GDP $2t
New office construction, Moscow
$1t
1 500 000 m2
500 000 M2 each year 2000
2008
According to experts’ estimations at least 500,000 square meters of office space will be built each year in the near future. Even though this is three times less than the pre2008 construction volume, it is still considerable. For example, this amount of space almost amounts to two towers in the Moscow CBD or 7 business parks like Krylatsky Hills.
2012
To find locations for new office development we need areas , which simultaneously have good public transport accessibility, high density of population to decrease commuting and a lack of existing offices. To distribute the estimated amount of new construction (500,000 m2) while still maintaining the concentration of companies in the same area (about 6070,000 m2) we need to find the 7 most suitable locations. To find locations for new office development we need first of all areas , which simultaneously have good public transport accessibility, secondly, high density of population to decrease commuting and thirdly, a lack of existing offices. To distribute the estimated amount of new construction (500,000 m2) while still maintaining the concentration of companies in the same area (about 60-70,000 m2) we need to find the 7 most suitable locations. According to the map with three layers, showing main factors for office location, zones suitable for future development were chosen All locations marked are within a 1 km radius of the nearest metro station (they are Altufievo, Otradnoe, Pervomayskaya, Perovo, Mariino, Shipilovskaya, Chertanovskaya). Let’s take as illustrations three examples from chosen locations. Near the metro station Shipilovskaya and Otradnoe there are huge areas (about 15 000 m2) which serve as parking Near Altufievo metro station a lot of space is devoted to roads and the useless lawns between them leaving a potential 140m swathe between buildings. These areas could do so much more than serve just as car parks and as the dividing space between road lanes. These areas have great potential and it could be possible to use them to rejuvenate the surrounding urban area. Development of new offices in microrayons will not only create new jobs, providing the opportunity to work near home, but will improve the quality of urban environments for inhabitants of these districts and even foster productivity.
Studio Offices Research report
Otradnoye metro station
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Shipilovskaya metro station
THE SECRET BEHIND GOOGLE’S PROCESSOR
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Interview
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Interview with Clive Wilkinson
Clive Wilkinson (Cape Town, 1954) is responsible for offices where workers skate from desk to desk and chill in grass-filled rooms. His approach was a total revolution in the way we perceive the workplace. It all started when, working for Frank Gehry, he designed the new offices for the Chiat/Day agency in Los Angeles, challenging the office as we knew it. In 2005 he was asked to design the Googleplex. This is how you design the headquarters of the World’s most powerful Internet company. by Edijs Vucens & Eduardo Cassina
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Interview drive 15 minutes back, which is a very bad model, in terms of sustainability. I think people in a way responded very positively to everything that was added into the workplace, every extra little kind of amenity. At the absolute point where workplace becomes a little city, but it doesn’t displace the cities. I think it just emphasizes how valuable they are to everyone’s life. What are very interesting are the changes happening in Silicon Valley, where many of these tech companies 10 years ago thought they have to be there, because all the talent was there. The entire talented employee base was in Silicon Valley. a lot of these new start-up companies have gone to San Francisco because the quality of life there is so much more interesting and better than the quality of life in Silicon Valley. It means there has been a migration of a very large number of tech companies and tech employees to the city of San Francisco for the very reason that they want the city life. And it reinforces how important cities are, I think. Yet you can’t replace the city you can only borrow its intelligence.
――Googlers were actually working in cubicles before you reworked their office environment. How did you convince a big player like Google to move away from cubicles into the more fluid landscapes that you generate? What was your argument?
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First, I think we were able to point out to them that they were becoming a much larger community. When we first started to work with them it was 2004; they were a much smaller company then. They had always used offices that someone else had built out, so those spaces were just inherited. They were used to working in cubicles and offices that were built for another company that had moved on. This was the first occasion for making big offices that really were like small villages. They didn’t have the answers for that so they were looking to us for a direction. I think there was a certain amount of trust that we would give them an environment that would be both functionally intelligent and also have the kind of community support that they would look for in making Google people not feel small as the company grew very big. This idea of human being, the individual worker, identifying with community was very important to us. It starts with the group you work with then it goes from the group to the neighborhood you work with and then from the neighborhood to the larger community. Considering these different scales it’s really important to maintain the connection of the individual to this big corporation.
――There’s this trend of city moving into the office and bringing all the infrastructure be it cafeteria or the grass greenery, but the other trend is that office workers tend to migrate outdoors towards city because of the possibilities of technology. Do you think city should respond to that in terms of infrastructure and provide workspaces?
needs — kindergarten, food, gyms, bed… What
I think cities are responding. I think I’ve seen incredible change in how cities are used just in the last 20 years or even 15 years globally. Cities have become much more playful and fun places to be. People have started to use cities like they didn’t before. And I think there are cultural changes that have gone along with that.
do you think the proliferation of this typology
――Yes, but public spaces are designed for
would do to the city? Would it make it irrel-
recreation but not for work. The benches are
――The Googleplex in Mountain View for instance seems to bring the whole city into the office so that it encompasses almost everything one
evant?
Oh, that’s interesting. I think what you have to remember is the context of Google. It’s in Silicon Valley. And Silicon Valley, historically, is a big work area with no city. There’s no downtown or city in Silicon Valley. In a way it’s one of the worst examples of the American sprawl. It’s just office parks, suburban houses, more office parks and more suburban houses. Really quite a lot of waste of land as well; the density is very low. In that office-park type you have to provide a lot of things because there’s nowhere to go for lunch. You have to get your car and drive 15 minutes to go somewhere and then you have to
IDEA ORIGINATION I THINK REMAINS WITHIN THE INDIVIDUAL, BUT THE GROUP IS A FANTASTICALLY FAST PROCESSOR. IT’S KIND OF ALMOST LIKE A HUMAN PROCESSOR
there, but they are not the most suitable office furniture.
I personally think that working outdoors has got its challenges because we work on laptops a lot and it’s really hard to read a laptop screen outside. It’s actually a light condition that is making working actually outdoors a challenge. Meetings are happening outdoors. In Silicon Valley they have that a lot, but actual working anywhere is still limited. ――Continuing on the boundaries of office and the idea of what is an office and what it is not... What about the Internet? We can carry our devices and still do work while we commute. Is the Internet creating a challenge for the ac-
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Superdesk for The Barbarian Group's office in New York. Design by Clive Wilkinson.
tual office? We know how strongly you emphasize the human interface...
We now have an infinite amount of information; that’s great. We don’t have to search for it in the way that our parent’s generations did. It’s much closer to hand. But, the ability to know how to use the information intelligently is still something that is unique to human and the computer cannot help you with it. I am a very strong believer that we need a community and we need people in order to make the decisions about what information to use. The other reason is that younger generations are coming to their workplace from universities where technology is not a novelty anymore; it’s simply a support for communicating. They have become extremely reliant on group work and being part of a team because the values of the team has. a Team has the ability to move rapidly through ideas. It has the ability to edit ideas far better than individual people. The only thing that teams can’t do terribly well is actually create
YOU CAN’T REPLACE THE CITY YOU CAN ONLY BORROW ITS INTELLIGENCE
ideas. Idea origination I think remains within the individual, but the group is a fantastically fast processor. It’s kind of almost like a human processor. This ability has arisen much more in the last few years and it’s very well understood by young people whereas back in the 1960s work didn’t happen in anything like the way it does today. The amount of creativity and innovation was very, very, low back in the 1960s when 1000 people would go in to work in an office doing a task that had almost no originality and creativity. It was just building a product that changed a little bit every year. a lot of products we build today are going to be dead tomorrow or have to be changed so massively that they don’t look like a product of yesterday. We’re in a different world. I am a very strong believer that body language, verbal communication, and the expression on someone’s face are incredibly vital to communicating the ideas that are important to us.
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Expansion plan of Google's successful office typology in Mountain View, California. Proposal by NBBJ.
At the other end of the spectrum we find e-mail and texting on your phone, where it’s so disembodied that it’s quite easy to misunderstand someone or simply to miss the point that someone is trying to make and to read it another way. The great thing about face-to-face communication is you can’t read it the other way. If I couldn’t see you right now, I wouldn’t know how you are reacting to what I’m saying and I would have probably stopped talking because I would be wondering if this is something you are disagreeing with: “Is this a line of thought that's worth extending…” And I only know it is, because I can see your faces. ――In this sense, what are the physical aspects of the office that we can say, for sure, will last another few decades..
I think where we come to now is that everything to do with office furniture, as we know it, is kind of irrelevant because all of it has been based on organizing and working with paper and electricity and data connections. Computer hardware, mechanical instruments have been tied to the floor or the ceiling, getting power and the data very directly and the desk has been something to organize paper with file cabinets and everything like that. That’s out of the window! The Laptop, with its battery, doesn’t need any of those things and that makes you free to work anywhere. So the only desk you need is a flat surface to put your laptop on. And your coffee!
WE DO BECOME POLEMICISTS FOR KIND OF A NEW FUTURE. WE ARE ARGUING WITH OUR CLIENTS WHERE THEY SHOULD BE AND HOW THEY SHOULD EMBRACE THE NEXT WORLD AND BE THERE FIRST, BECAUSE THEIR COMPETITORS WILL BE
I think we are into a kind of ergonomics of human relationships now across groups, which is great dynamic and that will free us to do crazy things with the office landscape, because relationships are the most important things now. We did a project in New York recently, the Superdesk, for the offices of the Barbarian Group and that came out of acknowledging that the only thing that was really important was relationships and how people could visually connect to each other. How quickly they could move around, how they could sit next to each other when they wanted to work on something. None of the furniture got in the way and they are all connected physically by one surface. The idea that the table almost contains the electricity of the community was something that really excited them. And it excited us of course. ――It is a revolution in the sense that you completely challenge all the boundaries and you can have a manager sitting not only at the same table but right next to an intern. This design really breaks down most existing hierarchies. How long do you think it’s going to take before this type of ideology will transcend to more traditionally conservative fields like banking?
We’re actually working for one very large global bank right now. We’ve been working on the global workplace principles and they are aware of the superdesk and it’s interesting to hear their comments about it.
Studio Offices Research report
There are many people who want to move in that direction, but the scale of these organizations is so large that their communities are something that they have to be very careful with. The risk of failure for a bank, when doing a big workplace project, is actually fantastically serious. If we had failed with the Barbarian Group’s Superdesk, would have broken up the table and brought a bunch of desks, and the whole problem would have been solved, probably, within a couple of weeks. So the risk level is much lower. We also had a theory that at a certain size, a company works like an extended family. Its relationships are so well known that people and the individuals get to know each other like in a family and therefore they have flexibility and speed; they have well balanced communication. We feel that it’s never really important to design for companies like that, because they already work; like a family works. Really large organizations have big problems with people feeling very small, insecure, and disconnected from the company. If a lot of people are feeling like that then the whole company is in an unhealthy condition. That’s bad for the company, it's bad for everyone involved in it and it’s bad for its relationships with outside world. This is why I thought that it does really make a big difference to communities to tend to solve the problems of large workplace conditions because you can create a community that way. We have become polemicists for a kind of a new future. We are arguing with our clients where they should be and how they should embrace the next world and be there first, because their competitors will be. One of the most important things that actually facilitates change is the desire to attract and retain really good talent. None of the things that we are doing would happen if it wasn’t for the fact that the company recognizes that attracting star talent is really important. We are now in the world of knowledge workers. It’s not just hiring someone who can do a job that doesn’t require much intelligence. It’s one of the great things behind this transformation — it’s actually business driven. ――What do you personally appreciate within your workspace? What are the crucial elements in your working routine both physically and mentally? What do you pay attention to?
It sounds like a simple question but then of course it’s a really complicated one. I think that it is so important to have a sense of a natural world in your office. Our office is mostly lit by daylight. We have these big solar tubes, circular tubes that are pushed through the roof, and as the light
changes in the day you remain in touch with the mood of the weather outside. We like that sort of connection to the natural world. We are a small company ourselves. I think what we did for the Barbarian Group is what we really want to do in our own office, which is to have one table to connect everyone. We feel that this kind of emotional-audial space that we create with the community, which works a little like a family, is really vital. You feel the emotions of what’s going on. Talking about a client being an asshole or something like that. You can stay kind of in tune with it. I think it’s a little bit like a little orchestra that’s playing. Sometimes it’s like jazz and they are improvising, sometimes it’s more classical and they’re following the score of a music and I really love that kind of aspect to what we do, but then around the perimeter of that, we have rooms where you can escape to and you can either focus, or mostly meet with people in a more private way. Often they’re video conferencing and things like that. It’s interesting, cause I’m here in the office sometimes and then I’m in the airplane and somewhere else quite a lot. I’m going to New York almost every week; next week I’m going to China; tomorrow I’m going to Silicon Valley. I enjoy being here when I’m here. ――You work on-the-go a lot. Is it productive for you? What’s missing for you?
I THINK WE ARE INTO A KIND OF ERGONOMICS OF HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS NOW ACROSS GROUPS, WHICH IS GREAT DYNAMIC AND THAT WILL FREE US TO DO CRAZY THINGS WITH THE OFFICE LANDSCAPE, BECAUSE RELATIONSHIPS ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS NOW
Like for every designer my life is kind of non-stop design. I love the airplanes because I get a lot of space and time to think about a project. For me work is actually all here [pointing to the head]. All the problems get solved here and then they find the way out through the people I work with or through the client. Sometimes it’s by letters or e-mails. You’re testing ideas constantly. You build scenarios about how something’s going to work. Like the Google office. It reminds me of when I was back in school and one of my professors would say — okay, what happens when your grandmother comes to dinner? And you’re designing a house.. How are you hosting your grandmother? What is she doing there? She’s asking for a gin and tonic… Where’s the gin and tonic? There are these kind of very human things. We try to run through as many scenarios as possible so that when the project is built, then you’re very flexible for the way the client wants to use it. Architecture is about creating a shell for human activities. These are the actual human activities that we are talking about.
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WORK OUT
WORK WITHOUT ANY RESTRICTIONS. HOW PUBLIC SPACE IS BECOMING THE NEW OFFICE by Edijs Vucens
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THE NEW WORK CITY
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Work Out
Home
Office
City
The New Worker
O 90 Work on duty, Krimskaya Embankment, Moscow
Corus Entertainment Office, Toronto
Free Wi-Fi Spot in the Metro, Santiago, Chile
ur habits have been changing for a while, and our working routines continue to absorb weird rituals. We coop ourselves up, working in random places, neglecting the momentum that brought us outside the office. Computer technology and the Internet have allowed us to encounter new experiences whenever we want. The last two decades have completely reshaped our daily routines: We spend more time in front of a screen than with our relatives, and it seems to be working just fine. These days, we work at home, live at work and seemingly do everything in between. Our devices have become our new offices. Why are we even bothering to change our routines? Because now we can! And we have always wanted to; indeed, everybody is doing it. The convenience, necessity and competitive advantages of technology have led us to this new working style that everyone is starting to use. We — The New Workers — are breaking the norms, finding weirder and more outlandish places to plug in to our devices. Everywhere we go we see commuters-with-computers, men and women emailing on metro floors or gathering around power plugs in airports. The power source has become the modern oasis, quenching the thirst of our batteries in the sprawling urban desert. And what about that extra Latté bought only to get Wi-Fi in the nearby Starbucks? Wasn’t there enough anxiety already?
Work And The City Offices struggle to keep the New Worker comfortable. The benefits provided by a company’s efficiency and competitive advantage are being challenged dramatically by the increasing freedom and variaety of choice that can be found outside the office environment. Thus employers, witnessing the great migration of their workers outside, are attempting to stem the flow by creating better corporate environments. As we realize the importance of our routines we all consider our growing options with greater and greater care. Freedom, flexibility and a passion for your work are just
Easy Mode Work type: On-the-go Work examples: Basic communication, phone calls Project management, supervision 1 on 1 meetings Necessities: Mobile device Network Coverage
Temporarily static mode, Gorky Park, Moscow
a few of the emerging values that are being emphasized in the media as being the new keys to creativity and efficiency. In recognition of the latest trends, office environments are being adjusted accordingly: new elements are being introduced to the typical corporate environment. Our homes, our sources of relaxation, our gyms, our hospitals; seemingly every piece of urban life is being shipped into the office in a pursuit of the “city-in-office” trend. Meanwhile, workers, who feel maltreated, are using technology to cut their connections to a physical office, embodying the opposing shift: “office-in-city”. New workers can now leave the office, but where do they go?
Go Office Or Go Home Public spaces haven’t been designed to deal with this emerging demand for mobility. Cities don’t even want us to sit down without a good reason; they are constantly trying to keep us on-the-go. That makes one think... What if, cities actually recognised this emerging demand and tried to encourage it, before everyone recognises the imperfection of our current work options? What if a workspace could be found wherever one might need one: built into the very city itself, like playgrounds, bus stops or even bike racks? Even if the desire is already there, the definition of a workspace is still confusing in the city context. Which out of a computer, desk or the power socket really defines the work place? The definition of workspace seems to depend on the unique features of each job. This project seeks to distinguish three modes of work in order to understand the requirements of the truly urban worker. Easy, medium and hard modes classify the working habits that already exist and suggest what infrastructure the city should provide for each of them. These classifications quickly show that not much of the required infrastructure is actually lacking, but just enough to stop New Workers from freely working in the city.
91 Medium Mode Work type: Temporarily static Work examples: E-Mail, file exchange, updating social networks The approval of documents, minor paper work Meetings involving 2+ people Necessities: Network coverage Chair / table
+21°C
Hard Mode Work type: Persistently static Work examples: Writing, editing, translating, accounting Paper work, finance, analytics, Programming, designing Necessities: Reliable climate and Internet (Wi-Fi) Power source, chair, desk, restrooms, security
Studio Offices Research report
Work Out +21°C
92 Improved lanterns, Kuznetsky most, Moscow
Go-Working
City Fault There’s plenty of infrastructure in the city, yet it is exactly the city environment which is least suited to work. Existing structures do not encourage these new work routines despite the fact that only a few of the crucial elements seem to be missing. It’s not the general lack of a power source, desk or shelter that is required, but the unfortunate rarity of situations in which all of the above are found. This research and strategy tries to isolate the missing elements and then address the imperfections. The following solutions suggest the use of existing infrastructure as well as the implementation whole groups of useful features; the aim being to encourage emerging mobile working trends, and help create the sense of city orientated towards the user.
Kuznetsky most, Moscow
Krymskaya emb., Moscow
Patriarshy bridge, Moscow
One solution to the problems presented by the Easy Mode could be found in the modification of existing street lamps. Typically situated in areas with high foot traffic these work-spots could serve as a quick pit-stop. a place to charge one’s phone, rearrange documents or hold a quick meeting. By adding a power source and desk to the existing lights, the city would gain workplaces that could be replicated easily and quickly. Benches are ubiquitous in the urban environment. While, being typically intended for recreational use, the addition of collapsible tables and power sockets would provide city workers with a workspace for more engaging tasks, which are more time consuming and require greater focus: media work, minor paper work or even Skype video calls.
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Improved constructions, Gogolevsky boulevard, Moscow
A Modern Take On Static Work
Improved benches
The use of existing sheltered spaces in the city has the potential to extend the utilization of public workspaces generally. It would create urban spots free from the risk of rain as well as generally more dependable spaces. Areas under bridges, existing bus stops and other kind of pre-existing infrastructure could be easily adjusted to the needs of workers on-the-go. They could easily provide opportunities to exchange files, recharge your batteries and even hold short business meetings.
Public space under Krimskiy bridge, Moscow
Public work space with a roof, Moscow
Studio Offices Research report
Work Out
Refurbished public library used for work, Dostoyevsky library, Moscow
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Climatized public space improved with complete office infrastructure, Pushkinsky Bridge, Moscow
City That Works At this point it is necessary to consider one’s own attempts to work outside the office: whether due to necessity or desire, in your own city or abroad. It’s not an easy task to find a natural place to work apart from in coworking spaces, cafeterias or libraries. a place where you could completely immerse yourself in your work without paying for it; the kind of spot that could provide
the potential for work that the park provides for leisure. It has to be stressed that this idea is not about moving the office into the city. It’s about getting work done where and when you need to; being aware that there is always some temporary office space in the city, which is accessible, reliable and welcoming, whenever you need it; the kind of place that thousands of tourists and freelancers might appreciate. With this in mind we would introduce adapted work environments, suited for any kind of task at any time of year. Ideally we would
use public space that is self-sufficient and accessible. The dominant office environment is then replicated outside of the office. a new space capable of accommodating any kind of office work: be it programming, analytics, paperwork or anything else.
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Do You Buy It?
Welcoming City
This project aims suggests that such public workspaces should be fully subsidised. However, a monetising option could easily be incorporated in situations and cities where such amenities are rarely provided for free. The swipe of a metro card could activate both the power supply and allow a medium for payment, thereby covering the electricity bill. This would create an easy and widely available service that would be easily incorporated into the daily routines of New Workers.
It is important to realise the benefits of a project that could increase the utility of a city. This is a vision of a friendly city; one that would pro-actively take care of both its residents and visitors alike without a focus on monetary gain; a city that cares, one that is both is reliable and empathetic; a city focused on actual user experience. Moscow is the in same position as any other modern city dealing with the paradigm shift that has been precipitated by modern technology, If Russia really wants to stand out as a place to work and live, here is the opportunity.
City that works, Patriarshiy bridge, Moscow
Power payment with the metro card
Studio Offices Research report
GAME OF OFFICES INTERVIEW
Interview
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WITH LIAM YOUNG
Liam Young is an architect who operates in the spaces between design, fiction and futures. He is founder of the urban futures think tank Tomorrows Thoughts Today, a group whose work explores the possibilities of fantastic, perverse and imaginary urbanisms. The emersion into his vision of the gemefication of everyday life starts now. by Anna Golovkina
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Interview ――Hi, Liam! As I wrote via email I would like to talk about the future of work in the office.
My interest is in the way that network technologies are changing the nature of work in the offices. I am interested in something like Amazon Mechanical Turk. Have you ever seen that? Do you know what that is? ――No, sorry. Can you please tell us more about it?
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Amazon mechanical Turk is an website ran by Amazon. So, you can log on, set up a profile, and you can advertise tasks your willing to perform, and millions of people work around the world can choose your job and pay a small amount of money for you to do it. It is similar to websites like Taskrabit, where you outsource your work. You send out your task to the Internet and say, “could you research every article that mentions the word “office” and they come back with a long list. So, that's a really interesting model of outsourcing. And I think, what’s interesting about the future of the office is that it may not be based in a single room anymore, an office might be a floor of a building or a cubicle or a studio somewhere, but the office will also become atomized or distributed across the planet. Many corporations spread themselves across the planet now. So, you see how organizations and corporations in London, where I live, will have a constant presence in India and they will outsource it’s rendering to a company in China, which then outsources its model-making to another company in India; a telecommunication company will outsource it’s call-centers and it’s help-line to somewhere else in another part of the world. I mean the fact that outsourcing has become more accessible for everyone, I mean anyone can send job to Amazon Mechanical workforce. This suggest really interesting new models for the phrase “an office”: where we might inhabit or might work in a place that has no physical footprint; an office space may be composed of people’s bedrooms or people’s laptops that are scattered all over the world. And I think that’s very exciting, but potentially very dangerous. I think that's the future the office. ――And what about the way that people are working; for example historically the meaning of words like work, labor, and job implied pain, slavery, disaster and so on, and then with the reformation era it all changed and the work became a part of human existence. Is this pattern of work going to change now? Is work going to become a pleasure? What is the driving force behind these changes in our work patterns?
What’s interesting about those points on out-
MY WORK ISN’T THE SPACE THAT I’M IN, BUT THE SPEED OF MY INTERNET CONNECTION, THE RELIABILITY OF MY WI-FI, MY PROXIMITY TO A DECENT CAFÉ
sourcing and web-sites is that people log on and do jobs that were assigned to them in the same way that we play video games and we check Facebook; so, the line between what is work and what is a play or a video game is actually pretty fluid. People talk about the gamefication of life, where life gets turned into some form of a video game; where we acquire friends in the same way that we acquire foes; where getting money kind of becomes the point system of a video game. There is a very famous theory by the game’s theorist Jessie Shell, he talks about how you can actually use game theory to create incentives for people to do things like brushing their teeth or eat an apple or do some exercise. Turning those kind of rewards into a game means that it becomes less like work and more like play. So, I think you'll see more of that kind of work actually being spread around. We will no longer distinguish between our job and our web browser, or Job and video game and entertainment. I don’t mean that this will happen everywhere but I think that it will be a sort of a tendency and movement. The gamefication of everyday life will blur work and play. This is a new concept behind the word “office”. What’s dangerous, What we saw happening with globalization, is that the distributed office or the distributed corporation leads to you outsourcing certain parts of the office space to parts of the world that have different labor restrictions, different minimum wage levels, and different costs of living. You essentially benefit from and exploit corrupt or developing governments. So, there are dangers in outsourcing because you are not close to you workforce and therefore you ‘re not as accountable. The control over your office space is much more dispersed and distributed so it's more difficult to understand what your office is and how it’s operating. All this stuff happening, like when Apple outsourced certain parts of their production to China; the Chinese company, which essentially operates as part of apples office infrastructure, employed under aged workers, who worked long hours, were exposed to dangerous chemicals, and everything of that sort. There are certain dangers in all of that but you can also see really interesting things happening: That amazing story of a worker in America who outsourced his job to China without his company knowing it. So, he was going to work every day and just sat browsing the internet, watching YouTube videos, while he actually paid a Chinese worker to do his job and paid him much lower rates than what he was getting. He was doing this for few years and the only way that people found out was that in order to allow that Chinese
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worker access to his job he had to leave the door open on his computer system; the Internet Security of the workplace was compromised, otherwise he wouldn't have been found at all. You know he would have been going on for 10 -20 years getting promotions and never actually working a single day in his life, just assigning his task to people around the world. So, it's a really interesting condition, it's a really interesting time for the office because we no longer need to be in the same place as each other any more, we no longer need to sit under the same roof, sit across from each other. We can have very meaningful and fruitful conversations over the net. ――What do you think of the modern office work-
employer and between worker and the boss is actually very different, it's very complicated, it's not something that you can usually describe as being lost because in many cases it was never there in a recognizable way in the first place. I doubt that there is going to be a fear of loosing jobs because Amazon’s Mechanical workers might do different jobs to different people on any one day, losing any one of them is kind of irrelevant. I think the globalization of office space will also change relationships with the boss. I don’t know if it will be better or for worse, but I don't think we will be as worried about losing our job because the nature of job will be less precious than the way we think about it now.
ers life?
――What is the correlation between the architec-
I guess it’s the new normal, it's certainly different and it's a world that we have moved into very slowly, slowly enough that we haven't realized it. We’re actually already in a condition where technology has fundamentally changed our lives; actually changed the role of physical place; changed the role of what architecture is. Architecture is no longer about containing people together in a single place. Technology creates new ways to interact that we haven’t experienced before — I'm much closer to my twitter network, which I engage with and collaborate with, I’m much closer to people that are dispersed across the planet than I am to my neighbors who lives upstairs: I’ve never talked to them; I never meet them and they live right next to me. But, my experience of London has nothing to do with the people physically around me. It's got to do with the people who are online at a certain time, with whom I’m connected to virtually. So, it's a very different in the way of working but it's actually no different to the way we socialize now. Facebook and other social media have already flattened the planet and created these new ways to interact. So, I think that this new way of working is just an extension of the mode of being that we are already in.
ture of an office building and its office culture?
――What is your vision of relationships between employee and employer? Maybe the fear of loosing one’s job will disappear somehow?
I'm not sure that we are going to be really worried about that; I mean, in an outsourcing situation like the one that I'm trying to describe as being the future: In the office, a lot of time, we don't even know who we are working for. You know that example of the worker in America outsource his job. The guy in China had no idea; he thinks that he’s working for the guy he is talking to, and he doesn’t know that he is working for a company. So, the relationship between employee and
Which is the defining feature? And how will this correlation change in the future?
I guess my argument would be that the physical architecture of the building matters very little in this world I'm trying to describe. You can no longer assign value to the physical architecture in the same way, what actually matters more to me when I'm doing my work isn’t the space that I’m in, but the speed of my internet connection, the reliability of my Wi-Fi, my proximity to a decent café. So, that's the type of architecture that I think matters now; a kind of information architecture. a digital infrastructure, which I do is another kind of architecture, but I don’t think it's an architecture based on bricks and concrete and physical spaces, but an architecture that’s based on infrastructure cables and cloud computing connections. ――Are we witnessing the death of the office?
I DON'T THINK WE WILL BE AS WORRIED ABOUT LOSING OUR JOB BECAUSE THE NATURE OF JOB WILL BE LESS PRECIOUS THAN THE WAY WE THINK ABOUT IT NOW
I don’t think it's dying, I think it's just changing; we need a way of thinking about what this new type of office is. I like that in your e-mail you were talking about using “office” as a verb. It’s really clever; I think that's a very good way of describing the condition I’m talking about. The office is more like a network; it's more like a set of interactions than a single piece of architecture. So I think “office” is still a useful word, but the office, as we know it, might be fundamentally changing. We still need a way of thinking about it: Ann office might be useful as an analogy or a metaphor to describe the circumstances. It is just a different kind of space, not made up of people sitting at desks in a singular room, but made up of people sitting at desks scattered around the world. They occupy this virtual space together in some kind of virtual platform and that, I think, is an office, just a different kind of office. ――Do you think we need to change the word in
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You're right, work will change and the nature of work will change, but I don’t know what this new word is. You know, as our work becomes increasingly outsourced, it will be more about organizing than our work, as we know it, is now. I like your project to try and find new words for things and I think that this is something that could be really useful because words help to define what something is. A word helps to bring and collect people together around so idea so that it can gain the momentum it needs to become crystalized; your version of ‘office’ as a verb is a step in the right direction.
As a practicing architect I run what I call a think tank, project-led, model of an office where depending on the project I have in the studio I bring people in directly to work on that project. I have no permanent staff, I just have a network of people that at various points in time I bring in and work with. So, for me an office is a network of people who can sometimes connect physically and geographically, then we'll hang out in the same city and work together, but sometimes that network consists of people who I work with remotely and they contribute and collaborate across the network. That is my form of office, a distributed think-tank that, kind of like a sleeper cell, just sits waiting for the right time, waiting for the message from the mothership to call them into action.
― It often happens that we take our routines for
― When talking about offices it is impossible not
order to change the aura of this way of life? Maybe you know this word? My modest achievement of transforming the word "office" into a verb that means the process of work.
granted without thinking and understanding the real implications. What is the concept behind the word "office"? Is it the function or process or the people that define an office?
IT BECOMES LESS LIKE WORK AND MORE LIKE PLAY
to talk about work. But work is done by people, and therefore how can the office exist without people? Is office culture transforming?
Office culture will be much like social media
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culture, we’ll relate to our co-workers in the same way that we relate to our Facebook friends. It is changing and it's just going mirror the way that every other aspect of culture and social interaction changes as they go online and leave their physical domain. In a way office culture will be an extension of the way we interact with one another socially. ――How can we distinguish our jobs from our
ings that makeup London, but now in my experience London is actually conditioned by a set of interactions that happen all over the world. The physical city with its own skyline and architecture is not relevant for me at all. So, I think in the same way a glass building on skyline will become increasingly irrelevant. We’ll be defining cities by intense infrastructure and technologies not by skylines and glass towers.
lives? Or is the whole of life work, and work life?
――And if the business tower used to be the typi-
How do you think the value of work will change?
cal vision of the future, what will a new vision
I think that's going to be a more general issue — work and play becoming increasingly indistinguishable, we may not be to tell the difference anymore; we may not care about that difference. We will find ways to make work fun.
consist of?
The architectural future is somewhere between the physical and the digital, spread across the physical city is actually a layer of technology. I can see you in a little window on my screen and I can see a flat behind you, that’s a strange little piece of architecture. In many ways the architecture of the future is going to be made up of these little windows into the world, which are distributed around the globe. The architecture of the screen is just as important as architecture of the flat. I think it might be difficult to describe a physical form of this vision of the future because it doesn't exist in a physical space it exists in digital space. The future of the city may look like a game environment, more similar to something like Second Life than something physical.
――What tools can we use to gain a deeper understanding of the future of the modern office?
We can use the techniques of fiction and storytelling to describe possible futures. When we think something could happen, we talk about future scenarios and we present them to our audience as stories. That's the way that our culture shares ideas, through stories and fiction, whether in books or in movies. One way of visualizing the possible futures that we're talking about is by telling stories about them. Ricky Gervais had series called “The Office”; a fun situational comedy TV series set in a very ordinary British office. The US did it did its own version. I would love to see a TV series, a sitcom, a sci-fi sitcom, set in the world of outsourcing and offshore corporations; set in a call center somewhere, where we actually see this new pattern of relationships. That would be a really interesting way to visualize and to imagine what this new world could be.
――What was your impression of Moscow during your visit last summer?
of the top megalopolises the symbol of future
I was intrigued by the way it was hanging onto its history, I found it interesting that certain buildings were being reconstructed, in the presentday, to look how they thought they looked like historically. So, in a way Moscow is becoming a caricature, a kind of comic version of itself, as it tries to recreate a history that never existed. That's interesting, but it speaks to what I'm trying to say about the features of a skyline, which is that it's not about what the architecture, it is but about what architecture says.
urbanism. Would you agree that this image of
――In my native Saint Petersburg there was big
the future is spreading all over the world and
fight concerning the construction of “new”
lagging behind the information technologies of
architecture, to the extent that the cancelling of
the new century?
such construction has been really well received
The role CBDs play on skyline has nothing to do with what they contain inside them; they could just as easily be empty. It’s about the image and branding of a city or a particular company or corporation, almost like giant signs or billboards. I don't think that necessarily will change, but certainly what they contain will become increasingly irrelevant. I think that the architecture that defines the city, as I've been saying, is no longer necessarily physical. We used to define London by the people that live in London and the build-
by the public.
――Throughout the 20th century CBDs and skyscrapers have been the most futuristic architecture of cities. They've made the skylines
WE ALWAYS RESIST THE NEW IN FAVOR OF OUR IDEA OF WHAT THE PAST WAS
There is plenty of non-original building in a place like Saint Petersburg. Yet, this is an amazing attempt to hang on to a stout vision of the past, to resist evolution. It seems strange to reinforce the reproduction of history that didn't really exist rather than create new histories. You know, the Gazprom glass tower is a product of the time in which it was made or would have been made. If we always resist the new in favor of our idea of what the past was, I think that's dangerous.
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EAT WORK LOVE A SHORT EXPLANATION
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OF WHY WE NEED A NEW TYPE OF OFFICE How do you see the future office? Before you answer... it is almost not an office as we know it now — it is only an attitude to work. However, there has always been a contradiction between work and life. by Anna Golovkina
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Eat, work, love
Community
Contact
Competition
Activity
Traditions
Focus
Trust
Ambitions
Stress
Cubicle workspace Team room Open Space Private offices Creative space Big brother Fixed schedule Flexible schedule Monotone Rythm
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Multitask Project management
I
n ancient times employment was an abnormal way Why do we still work in the usual ofof life but there was no judgment on how you spent fice? your own time. By the reformation era it had almost According to a research report by Johnson Controls, become the reason for human existence. However, in workers with a flexible schedule increased their hours the 20th century a new contradiction emerged — work working in the office by against leisure. In the The problem is not in a way how desks 45% in comparison to the modern era work has become a status — it doesn't time spent at home or onare standing but in the lack of intermatter what sex or age the-go. My usual working actions and communication between you are, only whether you day lasts about 12 hours. co-workers work or not. If you work a 12 hours Nevertheless the meanper day, your personal —Ilya Oskolkov-Tsentsiper ing of this word is still the identity, your community, same in different lanyour friends and even guages: kind of “effort and your life's meaning has to overcome in life [unclear come from work (c) (By what this means]” or even Patti A. Wood blog). On “slave” like in Russian. Indeed, offices are about people, average we spend only 6% of our time on social networks, only 11% eating lunch and as much as 83 % workwho work. About their personalities. Because, without ing. So, the question inspired me to investigate how we people, offices are just buildings, pieces of infrastructure could get more pleasure from office work. My intention or public spaces. was simple — to add two of our greatest pleasures to the working process: food and love. Typically there have been some obstacles to such intentions and I tried to
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Leisure vs non-leisure Ancient Greece Labor was abnormal way of life
Active work vs contemplation
Active work as a sence of human being
Middle ages
Reformation era
No jugement how you spent your own time
Labour had to be useful and beneficial at least for you
Idleness became punishable
Work vs leisure
Capitalism era
XXI
USSR, constitution article nr. 12 of the criminal code
Work in a high priority
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find the most common problems and deal with them. fice life. So, people can gain so much more from the office In my own experience the only answer to the question than just money. They can almost receive a kind of life. “what is the office?” — is that What were the sources of interest? “The office is a problem”. I agree wholeheartedly with During my investigation of the work routine of differIlya Oskolkov-Tsensiper, a designer and media manager ent office types (cubicles, from Moscow, who states, Office shapes worker's life and creopen space, team rooms “The problem is not in the and private offices) the way in which the desks ate visible sense, because office is their answer always seemed obare positioned, but the territory and even home they have to vious. All of their problems lack of interactions and share with family. were related to the indicommunication between vidual type. Yet, people co-workers”. What can we —Alexey Karakhan seemed to like cubicles do about that? and didn’t care about their The main factors that working environment. The define our communication between co-workers bigger the company the are our opportunities for more time one spends in regular interaction, our social networks and the number the office and the more possibilities you get for communication and socialization. “The office shapes the of our office relationships. These are incredibly important worker's life and allows a kind of ownership, because because speech has been shown to make up only 7 % of the office is their territory. Even homes have to be shared human communication, the rest is non-verbal: tone, eye with the family” so claims Alexey Karahan, Senior Vice contact, gestures; interactions that are only available facePresident of both Strategic Communications and the HR to-face. The most meaningful social contact occurs when department at Otkritie bank. However, I couldn’t escape we eat, work and relax together, all key aspects of the of-
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Eat, work, love
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Work {english} Labor {roman} Arbeit {german} Travail {french} Rabotat' {russian}
Work for pleasure.
Effort Disaster Flour Pain Slave
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You can do a lot of complicated or expensive things to boost moral or you can just buy your employees lunch. Really the feeling that something was wrong, obfuscated by the motto: “the most important persons are employees”.
Problems are in the air My observations and interviews led me to the idea that all the problems were predetermined, more or less, by how the office is organized. Every time I asked whether someone had problems in workplace, they would always answer, that they had many, but that this was “ok”. This office problem matrix shows how the form of an organization affects social conditions. Things like community, contact, traditions, focus, ambitions and stress and blue cells all create potential problems. For instance, by utilizing private offices you as a manager can create problems of community, communication, unhealthy competition, traditions, trust and even stress. One can use this table to identify what kind of troubles you can have in your company and what kind of organization you are these issues already exist.
Fill with meal
a survey at one company, which I made during the course of my research, highlighted that the majority of people leave the office for lunch. As the employees described it: they just needed to step away from the desk. But, also, the majority want paid lunches, you as a boss could do a whole plethora of complicated or expensive things in order to boost moral… or you could just buy your employees lunch(с) (Want Happier Employees? Feed Them by Suzanne Lucas)
When looking deeper into the problems that seem to be common to all offices: poor community, low productivity, Love is an attitude issues of communication, a lack of traditions and distraction. It seems as if they inherent to be the form of the office Another part of the problem is poor community. a lack of itself. But, actually, food can solve all these issues. Food is an trust, unhealthy competition and stress could all be solved incredibly powerful tool of manipulation, for example it can with love according to the lecture “Love or…?”, given by be very effective to prohibit people to eat inside the office. Boris Shapiro. “The object of sex can be replaced but the Make the office food-free, object for love is impossible remove the microwave, the to replace.” But the CEO of Object for sex can be replaced. Object coffee machine and leave KB Strelka Denis Leontiev, for love is impossible to replace. only access to a water founa consultancy department —Boris Shapiro tain. But, then provide food at the Strelka institute, for your employees outside. claimed that “Nobody is irreplaceable, even I can be Please make your workers believe that replaced.” you love them, don't use them But, this story is not about office romances, even though half of the company is ready for such affairs. It’s not even about “hot desking” inside the office; according to my survey 74% of employees in this company don't find their co-workers attractive. This, definitely, doesn’t concern the policy of the marketing company Onebestway, where every Friday is “nude Friday” and each employee works naked for the whole day. People are not ready to accept the office as a tool for dating. But people are under control sexually in
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Eat, work, love
this company and work hurts their private life. Thus, please make your workers believe that you love them, don't use them. It doesn’t even matter how really.
The question of parents and children
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Mix it!
Going back to my initial idea of the role pleasure plays in our work. What can the eat-work-love combination give to us? a new type of office. Over the past two decades, digital technolNew generation request that moves ogy and the internet have from money to social part on pushradically changed compull axis munication processes and the nature of work itself.
This is not the end of the discussion as today we are in a period of transition; all three generations are present at the same time on the same labor market. The three generations, X (lost generation), Y (digital migrants) and Z (digital natives), all have different approaches and needs. These have lead to the new generation demanding a shift in focus from the employer, a shift from good salary to good office sociability in the office. [on salary to a focus request that moves from money to social part on push-pull axis. (V. unclear what this second half means, tried to infer the meaning).]
X Lost generations
30-50 years old
Y Digital immigrants
Z Digital natives
<15 years old $
X Y Z
15-30 years old
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The office as a bar is a concept that is emerging in response to the impact of new computing technologies. Yes, we may already have the bar as an office, but this won’t be a collection of random people, but co-workers working, living and socializing, all at the same time. This transformation of the work place could inspire Industrial society and women estabnew kinds of routine; Importantly, face-to-face lished difference between work and communication will gain life. But life is work and work is life. a new kind of value.
— Grigory Revzin
The future is near An example of this, which is very close to the Strelka institute itself, is the Strelka bar. Here you can get food, share it with friends; do your work, hold a meeting; find your first love or even a new one. One can eat and work, work and love or even do all three, all at the same time. Today we are in a period of transition; all three generations are meeting on labor market for the first time. The generations are demanding a move in focus from salaries to sociability. [again unclear what “social part is meant to mean] Grigory Revzin, an architectural critic from Moscow, thinks that “Industrial society and women established the difference between work and life. But, really, life is work and work is life.” Globalization seems to imply the same, turning the 8-hour working day into the working day that never ends. This means simply that we just can’t distinguish any more between a workday and a day off. So how do you see the future office now? After everything that you’ve read above. The answer is pretty simple. The office is more about life then about work, the office should be about enjoying work and everything that is happening now. Finally, I think we need new verb to define the process of working for pleasure. To office?
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Charting the rise of asceticism in early Christianity and its institutionalisation with the medieval monasteries, Aureli examines how the basic unit of the reclusive life — the monk’s cell — becomes the foundation of private property.
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CHOICE
DO WE REALLY NEED IT? If we were free to choose when and where to work, would our productivity at work increase? How freedom of choice shapes the daily office routine? In order to find out I conducted a survey among workers in different kinds of offices. Results were quite surprising. by Olga Poletkina
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Choice
O
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ver the last 7 years I have worked for a number of different architectural firms. I have gained experience of large, small and even tiny companies. I experienced a diverse array of office environments: open plan, enclosed and shared with about 2-3 people, even shared offices with more than 10 others. Finally I tried a number of different working styles — projects, 9-to-5 and remote work. Yet, like most professionals, I’ve never been satisfied with my working environment. I always wanted my schedule to be more flexible, to adapt even to the changing of the seasons. Sometimes I just wasn’t satisfied with my workstation or the options provided, so, I was always searching for more flexibility at work, and I strongly believe that wider choice influenced my productivity positively. My personal experience is supported by the great weight of evidence concerning the correlation between work flexibility and office productivity. Thus, according to Regus research the greater the employee’s flexibility the higher the employee’s productivity. 72% of companies claim that their performance improved due to their diverse options. Gallup came to the same conclusions with its recent research, it also stated that people can be much more productive if 20% of their work is done remotely. According to Cisco one out of every three people younger than 30 prefers flexibility to salary. Obviously, further digitalization will let more and more people have access to flexibility and a bigger variety of work choices. This future work paradigm will greatly influence our lives, transforming the environment and biorhythm of the city. The offices to come will not just be spaces, separated into units, but rather a set of different areas, maintained by the company and chosen according to the requests of employees, demolishing the existing office concept and demanding a new one. With this idea as a starting point I decided to go to a regular Moscow office in order to investigate how it can be changed in terms of implementing maximum flex-
ibility. I was curious about the employee vision of their office and the options that they would like to have in and out of the existing office space. My investigation was meant to elucidate a new functional scheme of an office as a set of working areas inside and outside of the office. When interviewing people I was curious about whether they supported the idea of a correlation between being able to choose your work place and time and the level of performance. Almost everybody supported the link between the two; proof that all the questions under investigation seem to be particularly relevant for this office. The experience people have here is quite unique. Contrary to the norm they are not motivated by money, but more by professional development and the quality of the team. Another interesting fact about the consultancy firm is that its employees are quite devoted to their jobs. They believe that every project they deliver must be done professionally to a very high standard. They are highly motivated by their tasks and projects. And the majority of them really appreciate the team they are working in. “If I have a lot of work to do — I’m ready to stay in office and work 5-6 hours more, sometimes we even work during the night.” “When people come here to work — they realize what kind of place it is. They are ready for the load and the irregular schedule.” The official working time in this company is from 11 a.m. till 8 p.m. However, this schedule is quiet flexible and the majority of employees are happily able to work according to a flexible schedule. However, all respondents said that they regularly worked more than 8 hours a day and sometimes even on weekends, and that they were strongly dissatisfied with this. “I am so overloaded with work, that I have no time for distraction. Even at home, I am constantly online and dealing with work problems..” And as a result there is a strong brain leak with only 46% of employees staying in this company longer that a year. At the next stage of investigation, I asked people to evaluate office space in
Research question and research objectives My current research area is the way in which flexible working might increase employee’s productivity from his or her perspective. Productivity in that respect is measured by employee’s satisfaction and opinion. Thus, the research question of this work is whether flexible working affects personal productivity. Strategy The strategy of hypothesis verification is based on fieldwork. Once this is finished, I then made a new functional scheme of an office , which related to people’s needs. The main theme is that a company will not just provide employees with simple flexibility, but try to maintain visible spaces with power, Wi-Fi and other additional utilities on demand; a flexible structure, limited only by employee’s choices. The goal of the exercise was to make the chosen workplaces more productive. I wanted to shape the office according to the way people perceive productivity.
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Research limitations This research was geographically limited to Moscow; however, the concept of work flexibility could be applied to any other city. In these situations, local business and personal qualities must be taken into account when defining the parameters of work flexibility. This research is based on the deep study of one company and supplemented by interviews of employees from 3 other companies. There is no intention to generalize the findings. The results are time, country and business specific.
GULLUP
CISCO
Remote workers more engaged
One in three workers under 30 say they would prioritise social media freedom, device flexibility and work mobility over salary in accepting a job offer
On-site
Remote Engaged
28%
32% Not engaged
51%
50% Actively disengaged
Methodology Interviews, questionnaire and observation. The initial plan was to investigate just one office, but I ended up interviewing people from 3 different offices. As a case for in depth study I’ve chosen a consultancy firm in Moscow. This is a very young company that has been providing architecture/construction consultancy since 2013. Despite startup status the company has almost monopolized this niche in the Moscow market and is considered to be quite a promising team. Generally offices from the consultancy field do not experiment much with the working environment, this was crucial for me in choosing this company for research.
20%
18%
REGUS I believe that my company is more productive nowadays, directly as a result of more flexible working
76% Small business
72% Global average
113 64% Large business
Consultancy office
If someone will open some stall, right here in the office and start selling some bullshit food, I'm pretty sure everyone will buy the stuff only there... The less steps the better. We just need to have some piece of food and go to work quickly.
Studio Offices Research report
Choice
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terms of its positive or negative influence on job efficiency. Most of them gave quite a high assessment of their working environment. In response to a question about telecommuting the majority of respondents said that they perceived the office environment as being more productive, so they didn’t consider other options. “Generally, I like open space, but sometimes I just need to work in silence. So, it would be nice to have some place for silent work.” Interviews revealed that the majority of people are quite happy to work in openplan offices; they don’t like to be separated from the team. However, some of the respondents would like to have additional space dedicated completely to silence to allow for work that requires complete concentration. Similarly employees were quite excited about having some sport facilities in the office and having a bigger public zone for informal communication. a summarized wish list of the employees: A “Quiet room” for the solitary work. A Playroom with board games. A Library with professional literature. Rest and relaxation space (with the opportunity to stay overnight). A Large dining room that can accommodate 15 — 20 people. A Sports area with a Ping-Pong table, treadmill, etc. A Smoking Room. Space for informal communication. The opportunity to work in Museon Park. Following the results of the investigation, the office was upgraded. However, scheme 2.0 didn’t present anything new in terms of functional diversity and didn’t really rethink the space. My expectations were not fulfilled; I’ve come to understand that I failed to develop a new office type by just asking people what kind of working environment they wanted. Beyond the functional scheme I’ve produced, I’ve distillated 4 points that have become the key findings at this stage. 1. The majority of respondents think that workplace and hours influence productivity. 2. The majority of respondents like a working schedule unless it is more than 8 hours.
3. The majority of respondents don’t want to work remotely. 4. Most respondents think they will not be significantly more productive if further choice (new premises or spaces) appears in their office environment. Although people think that time and place of work influence efficiency they like an office schedule and are quite satisfied with their working environment. I don’t think that the introduction of further choice would change their performance significantly. This office has just relocated. According to the employees the new office was significantly better than the old one. Interviewing the company’s CEO I learned that working performance didn’t change after relocation. So I was very confused with my results and decided to go to other offices and to try talking with other people to learn if they would like to have more flexibility or choice at work. Case study nr. 2 and 3 Regular Sales office. working environment made up of different types of cubicles. Employees quite actively decorated their working stations in comparison to the first case study, so from my point of view it was a sign that this people cared a lot about their working environment. I tried to evaluate the office environment from the employees’ point of view, and the results were astounding. Sales office employees really appreciated cubicles, hence all typical theories about cubicles as a dying working environment started to fail in my head. They described cubicles as a nice environment, separating them from other people yet still allowing one to be aware of the happenings of the office. Sales office employees also didn’t express a desire to work remotely. This time I asked if they had ever had a better or different experience in their working environment; generally the answer was negative. Continuing my office adventures I went to a third and final office to double check the pattern; this time a big and successful engineering company. People here generally worked in two
A
Office space The consultancy firm is situated in a historical building that still preserves its old interiors. The main space is an open plan office that is divided into two parts. The majority of employees (and my interview respondents) work in this space; they work in teams of 7-8 people and share several tables, stacked in a row. Other regular employees, whose job requires more silence for concentrated work, share some enclosed offices. The Rest of the shared offices are divided between management and group-orientated departments (Accounting, Legal, Travel etc.) For group meetings or large discussions, the huge meeting room or CEO’s office would be used. Sometimes a meeting room would be shared by a few different groups. There are also several zones for informal communication: the kitchen, public zone and “library” room. The Kitchen: a small quiet room equipped with a microwave. The lunch table can be shared by a maximum of 4 people. The Public zone: a small space near the stairs furnished with 3 armchairs. Usually not used during the working day. The “Library” room — a space with numerous functions, which are not all that clear. Fitted with some bookshelves and books, but it doesn’t seem to attract people. It seems that this room was designed for informal communication, but usually it is empty. Sometimes used for Skype sessions. a large negative issue is the smell from the nearby toilet. Generally, the office space is quite spacious, light and cozy. The historical interiors provide the atmosphere of an office from the 1920-s.
Studio Offices Research report
What kind of facilities could increase your efficiency at work? 0
5
10
15
20
“Quiet room” for the possibility of solitary work Play zone with board games Library with professional literature Rest and relaxation space (with the opportunity to stay overnight) Large dining room that can accommodate 15 — 20 people Sport space with a ping-pong table, treadmill, etc. Smoking Room Space for informal communications Opportunity to work in Museon park
Functional scheme Development
Legal WC department
Z
Park
Meeting hall
Workshop Partners offices
Z
Z
Z
S
Home Hall
Open space
Editorial department
S
Z
S
Internal meeting room
Corridor Z
S
Z
Z
Z
Z
Open space
Z
Z
S Z
S
Accounting
S
Z
Z
Z
Institute accounting
Z
x
y
Z
Play room Z
Z
Z
Z
Z
S
Z
x
S y
S
y
x
x
Hall
WC
“Library”
Z
Smoking room Z
Z
Z
S
y
Sport space*
Z
Z
Z
Z
Z
y
x
x
Legend
S
Spaces to upgrade
Voted 15 people or more
Voted Less than 14 people
Out of office 1 vote
existing premises
y
y
x
x
y
* — more desirable changes x
y
Key findings x
PERFORMANCE IS INFLUENCED BY PLACE AND TIME OF WORK OK WITH WORKING SCHEDULE NEGATIVE TO REMOTE WORK WORK PERFORMANCE IS NOT INFLUENCED BY CHOICE IMPLEMENTATION
* Productivity — a measure of the efficiency of a person, machine, factory, system, etc., in converting inputs into useful outputs.
Z
115
Z
x
y
x
Kitchen*
Z
Public zone*
y
y y
y
Equipment Print-shop x
Shield chamber
x
y
y
y
x
x
Z
S
Rest room* Institute DNK project
x
CafeS
“Quiet room”*
x
S
Z
Z
S
S
Z
S
y
CEO
Travel manager
* Efficiency — the comparison of what is actually produced or performed with what can be achieved with the same consumption of resources (money, time, labor, etc.). www.businessdictionary.com
Z
Z
Studio Offices Research report
Choice
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types of environment: either open plan or a shared office for 8-10 people. I asked them the same type of questions and results were the same. Coordinating the findings from the three Moscow offices I’ve drawn 6 conclusions : 1. The Majority of respondents don’t want to change their working schedule and believe that they have the most productive work hours. 2. The Majority of respondents don’t want to work remotely (outside the office) even if they have the option and their work can be done remotely. They treat the office as the most productive environment. 3. The Majority of respondents are pretty sure that they will not be significantly productive if they had more extensive choice (new premises or spaces) in their office environment. 4. a Huge number of respondents would like to have sport facilities in their office, because they don’t like spending most of the day sitting at their desks. 5. a large proportion of respondents would like to have informal places to socialize with their colleagues in office. 6. The Majority of respondents who claimed that don’t need work flexibility didn’t have experience in a different working environment. The key findings repeated the conclusions drawn from the investigation into the consultancy firm and I have now come to assume that this might be a trend. I’m not sure that it is relevant for all Moscow offices, but there might be some value in it.
T
he next question that occurred to me was “Why?”, even with the new office functionality scheme, many people were unwilling to make changes in their work environment? Here I moved from the field of design to that of sociology and psychology. Judging from the first case study, people don’t consider the possibility of choices in the workplace. They don’t have that much experience in the new environment and therefore they don’t know how to use the opportunities provided. The recent relocation influenced the results profoundly. People didn’t like the
old office and now they have a better one. They just received a new environment and maybe they need more time to acclimatize before they will fully be able to recognize the benefits of work flexibility. Additionally, perhaps the reason why the results from previous investigations didn’t prove to be relevant might depend on the cultural difference between Europe and Russia. This investigation was conducted against a fully Russian background and this may have had an effect. To provide further support to my arguments, I discussed the results with four experts from the fields of consultancy, design, and sociology. According to the experts’ opinions the office will be around for a long time simply because it is the easiest place for employee communication. People don’t consider the issue of their working environment because most of the time they are busy working, with no time to look around and reflect on their surroundings. Denis Sokolov, from Cushman & Wakefield, explained how each person’s perfect office is unique to them. Everyone has the option to migrate from one office to another until they find the most suitable environment. Furthermore, it isn’t just the physical surroundings surrounding that define office environment, but also combination of a number of other factors. According to anthropologist Mikhail Alekseevsky the reason why there is little demand for flexibility at work is the lack of experience. Employees may just need the impetus or inspiration to consider what could be an efficient or comfortable working environment for them. However, confirming some of my initial conclusions, news from the original consultancy firm came in two weeks before I finalized my report. I learned that employees asked the CEO for permission to install a Ping-Pong table in the office. This request was brought up regularly in conversations with the employees but it seems after I finished my research it was made officially. So, I would like to think that even though my functional scheme failed I managed to trigger real changes in a real office!
Studio Offices Research report
Saves office and design
117
Key findings OK WITH WORKING SCHEDULE
INFORMAL SOCIALISATION
NEGATIVE TO REMOTE WORK
WORK PERFORMANCE IS NOT INFLUENCED BY CHOICE
SPORT FACILITIES
LACK OF WORKING EXPERIENCE
Why Consultancy office
DON’T KNOW HOW TO USE CHOICE
“PEOPLE NEED DIRECT COMMUNICATION — THAT’S WHY OFFICE IS TREATED LIKE THE BEST WORKING ENVIRONMENT” GRIGORY REVZIN ARCHITECTURAL CRITIC
RECENT RELOCATION
“RIGHT PEOLE FOR RIGHT OFFICES” DENIS SOKOLOV CUSHMAN & WAKEFIELD
DIFFERENT CULTURAL CODES
“PEOPLE ARE NOT ORIENTED ON THINKING ABOUT OFFICE BECAUSE THEY ARE TOO FOCUSED ON THEIR WORK”
“CONSERVATISM AND LACK OF EXPERIENCE IN DIFFERENT ENVIRONMENT”
ALEXEI MURATOV, PARTNER, KB STRELKA
MIKHAIL ALEKSEEVSKY ANTHROPOLOGIST
WWW.STRELKA.COM
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Остроумная попытка рассмотреть архитектурное наследие лужковской Москвы как бесценное свидетельство тех перемен, которые претерпело российское общество в постсоветскую эпоху
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THE ICEBERG OFFICE AND ANOTHER
Studio Offices Research report
74 IDEAS FOR OFFICES by Jurijs Kostirko, Asen Chumov, Georgy Aygunyan
Project “Iceberg office and another 74 ideas for offices” is a collection of different-scale ideas for offices. It presents a combination of large and small solutions for office constructions, stationary equipment and office furniture. The proposals were based on a collection that had been gathered of real life office complaints and real time observation as well as brainstorming sessions with various categories of people. This project will make you laugh but at the same time think seriously about daily routine in the office.
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Studio Offices Research report
81 Ideas For Office
120
#01 Skydacha Skydacha is an innovative high-rise building typology; a symbiosis between classical rural life and “new world” high-rise structures. It would give people, who have always wanted to have a rural lifestyle, the opportunity to still live and work in the city. Imagine high-rise buildings integrated with classical pitched roof structures finished with greenery and other typical elements of rural life.
#02 Liftalook This hidden camera in the elevator’s mirror will bring the Liftalook trend on Instragram to the next level. Activated by a smart phone app, it takes a picture and sends it to the owner.
#03 Housewife Office a typical kitchen with office functionality built in, allowing housewives around the world to combine their daily routine with office work.
#1
#1
#1
#2
#2
#3 #04 Bubble office An inflatable office for instant use, create your working environment with the included furniture in three easy steps.
#05 XXL office An office designed for people who spend a lot of time in bed or simply are very attached to their sleep.
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#2
#3
Studio Offices Research report
23 Coffee
#10 Senior office Modern offices are designed for young people; the elderly demographic is often ignored. This would be an office designed for seniors, with all equipment and furniture designed for those over 60.
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10
#06 Coffeevator
#11 Mobile skyscraper
Elevators have not really changed since their discovery. The idea is to make usual lift ride more pleasant and interesting by integrating a coffee machine into the elevator. Office workers will be able to get a fresh coffee every morning while also riding in the elevator.
This skyscraper consists of portable modules. Companies that occupy such buildings would be easily able to move into the surrounding area.
#07 Office city
#08 Coffee counter cup
A city designed just for office workers. Similar to the cities that already exist in the Muslim world where only women are allowed to enter.
Measures coffee consumption. User’s cup indicates the amount of coffee that has been drunk during the day; the cup would also work to remind the user.
#09 Rotate office
#12 Camp office
Many office workers complain about the lack of proper privacy and nice views in their workplaces. This proposal would divide up the very floor itself allowing rotating sections but keeping the furniture fixed. This approach should deal with any inequality of space in offices.
The inspiration for the camp office comes from military equipment and attire. In unpredictable situations, inherent to the variety of office life, such equipment and uniform would be very useful for office workers.
#15 Micro rayon office
#16 CBD membrane
The idea is to change the occasionally boring microrayon atmosphere by building office spaces above the residential blocks. Allows dwellers to work in close proximity to their home.
Façades of office buildings built decades ago are a weak point for building efficiency. Sustainable CBD Membrane would fix it.
“THERE IS A LACK OF IDEAS IN OFFICE SECTOR.” DENIS SOKOLOV
#13 Achieve office
#17 Table bed
Furniture that makes office space as flexible as possible; would make the creation and modification of your office space much easier.
Furniture with two functions, a desk for work, with the built-in ability to transform into a bed.
#18 No gender office Imagine an office with no gender discrimination. The proposal is to implement clothes where the main gender characteristics are erased.
#14 The iceberg office
#19 Laptop locker
The iceberg office is a floating structure whose offices are located above the water while its server rooms are placed in the basement. This idea would allow these server rooms to be naturally cooled by the surrounding water. These offices could be built as mobile units attached to CBD’s located near coasts. By being so close to CBDs iceberg offices could also rent their servers to different companies.
A laptop locker will allow employees to keep their equipment safe.
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124
#20 No cable office
#21 No stairs, no elevator
Cables in office buildings take up precious space. Why not use wireless technologies to provide more space and save on costs?
Workers will enter the building without having to face any stairs or elevators directly from the street.
25
#22 Le room
#24 Metro office
Relaxation room filled with animals. The office worker can take and stroke said animals or just watch them. Animals would help concentration and alleviate stress.
Office space that is located underground — particularly in the Metro system. This office typology is exploiting unused underground space to provide office facilities under the city.
+
#25 Mobile shower Shower equipment that is used in an office where there is no shower. An ideal system to take advantage of whenever there is a need to take a shower at the office.
=
KG
#23 Gym chair
#26 Office bridge
A chair that that doubles as an item of fitness equipment; an employee can do workouts during his or her breaks in the office — it will keep their body in good physical shape and reduce health problems.
An atypical office built into a typical piece of civil engineering. At once, both a pedestrian transit bridge and a work space.
#27 Fork pen A tool that can be transformed to a fork from a pen, when you want to eat and there are no clean forks in the office.
#28 Office city A network of offices located around the city forming branches of a single company. Branches are located next to urban facilities that people need: shops, kindergartens and schools.
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UV
#29 Office tan Jokes about office sun tan are common. Why not introduce monitors that would also tan your skin?
#30 Green wall
#31 Modular office
A garden in the office. Walls are located in the office space; these walls work to relax and improve office air quality.
An office building structure that is made from prefabricated office modules that are attached to the main structural frame when a tenant is found. The owner would save money while there are no tenants.
#32 Laugh room
#33 Universal cubical
A room where office employees can go have fun and relax. a place where they could watch comedies and funny videos, tell jokes and play games.
Cubical fitted with everything necessary for introverts or workaholics.
#35 Disco office Mutable office space: During the day a normal office but following the end of the working day it would change into a fun combination of a club and relaxation area.
126
#36 Office for IT The proposal is to design a building in which one layer of the external wall is devoted to servers. That kind of approach would make the building more energy efficient
#34 Mountain office
#37 Office city transport
An office building located on top of a mountain. It is an office that will help workers in the creative professions to get inspiration.
A transport system only for pedestrians that moves around the city, so there are no cars involved.
#38 Smelly feet What if your colleague has smelly feel? Here is a solution for this problem — a special system that extracts bad smells while at the same time giving back a nice refreshing breeze.
Studio Offices Research report
#39 Office clock Office employee’s wristwatches that show the time of the day and how he or she is spending it. There are two time zones; one is working hours and the other is free time away from work.
39
#42 Tree office Office that is attached to a tree. Plausibly located in parks or even forest areas; this office space is perfect for professions that need a calm and inspiring environment.
BOOST YOURSELF WITH
HEALTHY SNACKS
#40 Snacks Healthy snacks for office workers that are made from vegetables, fruits etc. Give people energy.
#41 Standing workspace
#43 Office village
Flexible workplace where you can work standing. Keeps you fit.
Office buildings that are located in rural areas, making up a village. This typology will work positively for people who need inspiration from the natural environment and not from the city.
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You inspired me mate!
I need motivation...
You can do it man!!!
B12 K
A
D
B6 C
#44 Office motivator
#45 Energy cup
Office motivator. New office profession. He/She has to know all the workers and their jobs to be able to motivate them.
A cup that is made from special metal alloy that energizes the liquid inside. Gives extra energy when needed.
100 points
50 points
25 points
I DON THINK
128
#46 Trash game
#50 Urban farm office
An idea similar to a game of darts, only with waste paper. It takes the form of a trash bin with many smaller circles inside, so that each time you throw a piece of paper accurately you get points.
High building that has two totally opposite functions, but at the same time creates a sustainable whole. Provides a source of food production for the building and the city, and creates a nice environment for tenants.
#47 Productivity detector
#48 Tetris program
A system controlling who is doing too much of any particular activity that is not related to their work. It lights up when an employee is spending too much time on social networks, for example.
Why should we organize office buildings in floors? The idea is to create alternative spaces vertically throughout the building and create socialization clusters between different companies.
51
#51 Relax room A room that can adapt to the worker’s relaxation requirements: smells, relaxing sounds, images.
#49 Office box
#52 Paper desk
An office working space typology that allows you to save space when it is not needed, but when employee come to work the office box can easily be opened, becoming a normal, fully equipped working space for everyday office work.
An office desk made of paper. Can be drawn on; will relieve the owner from any need for paper on his desk. a good solution for creative professions.
#57 Inside outside office
#58 Hidden office
Self hider. Barrier that blocks sight and sound for those who don't want to be disturbed.
An office building that shows its interior outside, on whose façade old time furniture and electrical equipment is exposed. a museum effect is created outside the building.
Hidden office. Office furniture that can hide a worker when he or she needs individual space.
LASER
#53 Self hider
HEY! LET’S GO GRAB SOME BEERS AFTER WORK
HEY! THAT’S MY TERRITORY!
I DON’T THINK SO
+
OK!
#54 Monitor laser
#59 Moving door
#60 Lego Office tools
A space separation system that divides each worker’s physical space from the rest. Others do not occupy spaces that do not belong to them.
A wall system that allows for flexible door entrances. With this system it is possible to modify a space as necessary for any particular usage or purpose.
By designing office tools with a modular system (LEGO) one could use office tools in a new way. Furthermore, office workers would be able to express themselves in a new creative manner.
THE WAR AX
THE FLAIL
MATERIALS tape
scissors
tape ruler
power cord
MATERIALS hole puncher
MATERIALS paper
ruler
power cord
tape rubber band
THE PENCIL SHOOTER pencil
rubber band
#55 Apocalyptic tools Tips about how you can make self defense weapons from among ordinary office tools in case zombie attack etc.
#56 Mirror office
#61 Portable office
Office space from mirrors that gives a feeling of never-ending office space for those who want to work in larger offices
Office which can be attached to pre-existing structures in the city. Its location can thus be adapted to the needs of a private owner or business.
lego
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Studio Offices Research report
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#65 Relief room
#66 Dressing room
A special room where an office employee can go and relieve his or her stress and combine relaxation with pleasure.
Room concept that is really needed in the modern office. Allows Employees to change their clothes according to their daily schedule.
#62 Office without furniture
#67 Ergo table
The idea is to create office space by getting rid of office furniture forever. By replacing the typical concrete ceiling with an elastic net office workers will be able to experience an alternative office space and daily routine. Imagine a building or structure designed as a giant hammock.
Furniture that remembers each user: a symbiosis of form and function. The act of sitting at a desk sends a signal to the desk allowing it to adapt to provide the perfect ergonomic conditions for each individual.
63
#63 Color screen By changing colors according to the workers mood it acts differently on human psychology and productivity.
#64 Landscape office
#68 Punchinator
Office building that is integrated into the landscape perhaps a park or open field; designed so people won’t be able to tell where the office begins and the recreation area ends.
A method of stress-release located next to workers computer. When an employee has a bad moment he or she can hit the punchinator and in turn not damage any work equipment.
#71 Sound room
#72 Scream room
A room typology that allows you to take a rest from work and relax by listening to your favorite music, to inspire and give energy for continuing productive work.
Removes negative energy. The room is 100% sound proof and has padded walls. Do whatever you want to de-stress yourself.
Yeee - aaahhhhhh!!!! ....I am refreshed!!!:))):!
WE ARE STUCK IN INFINITE OFFICE UNIVERSE #69 Bottom up pyramid
#73 Refreshivator
A high-rise building where the office space expands floor by floor, from the bottom to the top. This would give extra space at the bottom for the public and create better conditions for the inner ecosystem of the building.
Evolutionary elevator, that will utilize a refreshing breeze and menthol spritz in order to restore the user.
#70 Park office
#74 Vertical office
A structure that generates electricity through solar power while creating shade and more pleasant conditions for office workers.
Office space that is rented vertically, as opposed to the classical horizontal way.
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Studio Offices Research report
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#75 Office hotel Office space that works as a proper office during the day but which at night becomes a hotel space were office furniture is modified to provide hotel facilities.
Studio Offices Research report
133
ПОКУПАЙТЕ В КНИЖНОМ МАГАЗИНЕ НА «СТРЕЛКЕ» МОСКВА, БЕРСЕНЕВСКАЯ НАБЕРЕЖНАЯ, 14, СТР. 5А WWW.STRELKA.COM
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Подробное и увлекательное описание гигантской «пищевой цепочки», не просто обслуживающей город, но составляющей саму его жизнь.