
Despite the enduring popularity of remote and hybrid work, many companies have embraced plans for new office headquarters, campuses, and buildings, still believing that employees need to return to the office to maintain high levels of productivity and feel connected to the company culture (or simply to be in control) their workforce, depending on who you ask).
The first phase of Amazon’s second headquarters is scheduled to open in Arlington, Virginia, in the third quarter of this year (although construction for the second half of the year has been postponed indefinitely). Apple is still planning a new campus in Durham, North Carolina. While Google plans to give up some leased office space, it still intends to break ground this year on a large office and residential project in San Jose.
But with employees fully aware of, and often loving, their new ability to work from home, projects like this now have to meet a new standard: how to make offices where people — like you, in your hypothetical Bethesda existence — -The place. Actually want to go, even if they don’t have to.
The answers so far involve adding design features and perks that try to make more sense than those before the recent pandemic. Open floor plans with lots of desks are out. Private meeting spaces and flexible one-person offices are in vogue. Planners like to talk about “amenity-rich environments,” meaning not just pool tables and office snacks, but more practical offerings, such as an abundance of private offices and meeting spaces, gyms, dentists, retail outlets, and childcare.
They are all wrapped in structures that often have natural light and outdoor space, sit in the heart of the city, welcome the surrounding community at least on the ground floor, offer services that go beyond traditional employer benefits, and offer flexible ways to work instead of a bunch table. The overall design should create a sense of comfort — even luxury — in the office that rivals that of being at home, the architects said.
“Going to the workplace should be more convenient than working from home so that the workplace can commute,” said Grant Kanik, a partner and workplace consultant at architects Foster and Partners, which led the design of Apple’s headquarters, which garden. “I call it corporate-to-comfort,” said Brian Parker, principal of the Cooper Carry interior design studio, which designed the State Farm office park in Georgia and was hired for Microsoft’s potential Atlanta headquarters ahead of the plans. Work. pause.
Before the pandemic, office buildings and campuses were often built almost according to a formula, Parker said. Headcount, percentages of different types of jobs, and projections for future headcount growth are all aside; the number of desks and square footage required is another. Function trumps form. Design work can even be boring.
In this model, most offices are structured with approximately 80% usable, functional desk space and 20% conference room space. Designers spend most of their time drawing floor plans that incorporate different iterations of desks and offices, with conference rooms tucked into corners. Even before the pandemic, Kanik said, it wasn’t uncommon for one-third or even half of desk space to go unused on a given day. Companies that do manage to use their space a lot often do so at the expense of making employees feel cramped into open floor plans.