An end to the office as we know it?

Twickenham Accademy roomWhat recent designs might suggest for the post-COVID office

By Richard Hyams, Director of astudio

The coronavirus pandemic has created a sudden shift in how we live and work, with social distancing guidelines significantly changing how we occupy and think about the spaces around us. This shift has initiated a greater awareness of the relationship between our environment and physical health, with questions beginning to emerge and challenging workplace design. By looking at our recent designs, we can get a strong sense of what the post-COVID-19 office may offer, and how retrofitting can help us to get there.

New solutions inspired by recent design

The evolution of the office saw individual offices become cubicles in the late 1970s, before morphing into the open plan office we see today. Office space was reduced further in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis in a bid to reduce overheads, shrinking by 8.3% between 2009 and 2018 according to Cushman & Wakefield. The rise of co-working spaces, fueled by startup culture during the digital revolution, has caused occupational density to increase further - across WeWork’s global portfolio, the shared office company provides just five metres squared per occupant.

COVID-19 has the potential to alter workplace once again... Flexible working, smaller office hubs, and new technologies may well become commonplace, and how we interact with these spaces may also change.

New footfall routing, partitions, and a transition away from open plan design could be one way of navigating a demand for reduced density in the workplace. However, one of our recent projects, 70 Wilson, suggests there are possibilities beyond simply increasing distance between desks.

Footfall monitoring systems were installed to automatically track the flow of people in and out of the building. Repurposed, these systems could prove to be increasingly valuable in the wake of COVID-19. Occupational density could be monitored on each individual floor, for example, with display panels installed around the building to highlight areas with a high concentration of people and encourage building users to modify their behaviour accordingly.

Minimising contact, creating efficiency

There is much to be said for how technology can help to reduce our proximity to others, but it can also help to reduce our potential contact with interfaces throughout a building.

Contactless technology, motion sensors and movement-tracking apps are becoming the new normal for calling a lift, turning on a light or operating office equipment. Even prior to COVID-19, such technology was becoming an increasingly central design priority from an environmental perspective. This trend could well accelerate to mitigate against the potential health risks of high contact points.

Our 70 Wilson project incorporates motion sensor technology to improve the building’s energy efficiency. Lighting is designed to be active only when necessary, such as where someone is sat or as someone moves through the building, and the retrofit design also sought to improve energy efficiency in a similar way. Sensors only activate in parts of the building that are in use, rather than the entirety of the building, to ensure that carbon emissions are always relative to the number of users at a given time. Aside from providing positive environmental benefits, these systems could also help businesses to manage their overhead costs in the age of de-densification and remote working.

Improving ventilation systems

Some 800,000 people die annually as a result of poor workplace air quality, according to The Lancet - air quality is a crucial priority for workplace health made even more apparent in the context of COVID-19.

Our new school for Twickenham Academy introduced a displacement air system designed to improve occupant wellbeing and ensure the future viability of the site. The system provides fresh air that enters from the floor, grips to the body in a capillary action and then extracts from high level. A similar principle to the Victorian sash window, it ensures the maximum distance between the air entering and leaving the room, and that the air people breathe is as fresh as possible. By implementing displacement ventilation systems, air quality can be improved, and we can continue to ensure higher standards of workplace health.

The legacy of a new normal

COVID-19 has made the influence that the office has on our health abundantly clear. Empty office buildings will eventually spring back to life, but we believe the day-to-day role of the office will have inevitably changed. Gathering insight from recent projects, we can begin to consider how retrofitting - installing new ventilation systems, more energy-efficient skins and other technologies - can help to create post-COVID-19 offices that alleviate fears, keep employees safe and get businesses back on their feet.

Sources:

https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2014-08/documents/sick_building_factsheet.pdf

https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/4/14/21211789/coronavirus-office-space-work-from-home-design-architecture-real-estate

https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20181016-the-hidden-air-pollution-inside-your-workplace

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/apr/13/smart-lifts-lonely-workers-no-towers-architecture-after-covid-19-coronavirus

https://www.ft.com/content/6990b29e-11d5-11ea-a225-db2f231cfeae

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