THE NEW WORK TENT DEVISED BY STEELCASE ADDRESSES OPEN SPACE WHILE STILL OFFERING PRIVACY.
Designer Perspective YOU’VE GOT TO BE FROM THE FUTURE TO DESIGN A RESILIENT WORKPLACE BY MARTI KONSTANT
Marti Konstant is a designer, artist, workplace futurist, growth analyst, author, speaker, and founder of the Agile Careerist Project. She’s led programs for Samsung Mobile, Apple, Tellabs, Platinum Technology, Clear Communications, and more.
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hat was a role that gave you a glimpse into your future? As designers and thinkers, what you bring to the table is your experience, it’s your stories about the workplace. We’re influenced by what we’ve been through in the past. It’s our context and our content for the future. The future is designed by creatives and optimists. Today we can think about designing a future that people want before they even know it. But before stepping into the future, it’s important to bring our past to the present. Jeanne Gang, founding principal and partner of Chicagobased Studio Gang, delivered a keynote at NeoCon 2021 and talked about the importance of bringing the past into the present of some of the buildings and refurbishing projects that she was working on. The purpose of the past isn’t just for us to look back at the good old days, but it’s for us to really understand the importance of noticing the signals and the trends and patterns so that we can use it for future projects. We’ve had several industrial revolutions up until this point. The workplace has changed a lot since the ʼ40s and ʼ50s. Landlines and memos were used, there was a typing pool, and it was an open office environment. Going into the ʼ60s and ʼ70s, the concept of action design was introduced to the design and space world. It was elegant and expensive, but now has morphed to what we call today the cubicle. CONTINUED ON PAGE 14 ›
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