Rethinking work — neighborhoods are the new offices

The biggest home office experiment in the world has made it clear for the first time that there is no absolute obligation for many people to go to the office anymore. The pandemic has interrupted the routine of office life and, as a result, opportunities are opening up to redefine the meaning and location of the workplace in general. As a result, many companies are changing their policies for working from home, making now the ideal time to plan a strategy that reviews conventional views of office buildings as a central workplace. Under the new framework, the image of the office with fixed individual workstations as an outdated model appears to originate from the age of industrialization, because the technological foundations have been in place for a long time to create a networked and multi-local working environment with advancing digitalization. Communication technology is rapidly changing our experience and use of the city and in a very short period of time, the use of existing tools has accelerated enormously, so that we are now faced with the question: What could the workplace and work rhythm look like in the future?

In order to be able to find an answer to this question, the human being as an individual and his relationships with others must be at the center of the considerations. Because compared to technology, his emotional intelligence still gives him an advantage that must continue to be maintained, sharpened and promoted. Spaces should be created for these abilities in which identification and productivity are made possible. Flexibility and mobility are already in the foreground as a central factor for many companies, but there is a need for further consideration and consideration of how important physical space is for employees in changing times. Especially among younger target groups, there is an increasing desire to redefine classic work situations and rhythms. What qualities and opportunities are needed to support employees in their wishes in the future and at the same time contribute to improving the urban landscape and local communities through physical spaces?

In recent years, we have focused largely on the topic of the office atmosphere — in other words: optimising the fixed, enclosed space — we are now faced with the task of physical expansion. Humane, people-centered, designed spaces should contribute to a culture of cooperation and knowledge exchange. Additional amenities, such as supply, compensation areas for relaxation and a good indoor climate, contributed to the feeling of vitality and well-being. This physical space and its dependency on location are now almost completely called into question by new communication and collaboration technologies. It is no longer primarily about an employee-friendly atmosphere, but about flexibility and, again, increasingly about the relationship between people. Software developers are also responding to this development between man and place and man and machine. The variety of options and ways to communicate with each other virtually takes over the discussion about what functions the well-known workspaces will have in the future.

Thanks to digitization, the advantage of being able to work from anywhere has become a working model for many people.

Many areas of everyday life and entertainment are available online at any time and urban (office) life is becoming a long way off. As a result of this multi-local working model, which has become increasingly popular, the urban landscape and also the office space must be fundamentally restructured and become more attractive and user-friendly again through socio-cultural offerings that cannot be found directly out in rural areas. However, if the city no longer offers this to workers, why should they still move into the office?

When considering this, however, one should not completely ignore the fact that humans are ultimately a space-bound and social being. The question should therefore be a bit more radical: Should the office still be an office? From a personal perspective, the classic desk slows down my inspiration and social interaction, but we humans always need places where we come together to connect, build relationships, and develop our careers. As much as we need private places to go to to retreat, we also need public places to bring us together. Offices are therefore important for various reasons: Both people and organizations use them to express their work attitude, values and wishes. Physical places help us express our professional identity, which the ubiquitous virtual work is not yet able to do, and if we want to change or adapt any of these factors in the future, this will be difficult without a certain amount of physical presence.

Two poles are therefore facing each other. On the one hand, the home office model with its opportunities to combine family and leisure more easily, and on the other hand, the city office model with its attractive urbanity during and after working hours. A convergence of the two poles could result from dissolving traditional office thinking. An urban typology that relies on the monoculture of pure office districts hardly represents an attractive model for workers and their needs anymore — office districts have become obsolete models.

What does it take? More flexibility when it comes to company boundaries: Employees could also work in neighborhood co-working. This strengthens the local community, gives new impetus and, in the best case, you learn more from your neighbors than from colleagues. Because relationships that are not primarily directly related to work strengthen our inspiration and joy in it. In addition, offices should see themselves more as participators in an urban context and have an increased presence on the ground floors of various residential areas. Pure sleeping cities would become publicly accessible and flexible spaces not far from one's own center of life, which make working less isolated. For companies that want to see this as part of their strategy, it is conceivable that the workplace will function as a mix of traditional office and home work in the future.

Through integrated work in urban districts, the city's classic cultural, social and leisure-oriented offerings should be used and also promoted, resulting in more fluid working hours, which could be designed according to personal needs and work rhythm. As a result, certain districts became more attractive for companies offering complementary services there. One example of this new type of work is the nascent KALLE Neukölln: A wide range of sectors such as office space, food market, co-creation and activities under one roof with direct links to the neighboring neighbourhood.

If we want to maintain our working relationships and do our best, we need to rethink the size, placement, and structure of our offices. The transformation of ground floors and retail spaces that no longer exist can help revive the partly orphaned business districts in larger cities in order to ensure continued attractiveness. The experience of working from home has given us the tools we now need to be able to make positive changes in our cities, communities and professional lives. The city can become more complex, mixed and exciting again — we are looking forward to this change.