In the second part of this project I want to look at how new ways of ‘smart’ working are effecting the work place. Centre point is an ideal location for this concept to be deployed and developed, as it’s in the buildings nature to continually evolve the workspaces. This is due to the fact that the office spaces within the building are all rented out, so there are no fixed residences. Therefore, there is a continual change of client base with a multitude of needs.
My aim is to try and renegotiate the traditional work spaces that exist within Centre Point and replace them with an interchangeable system that will make the most out of the space Centre Point has to offer for the ever changing workforce. This I believe will have an enormous effect on the spatiality of the environment as a whole.
Today more and more people are’ teleworking’; which means their main work base is one that is away from the office in which their company is located, for example they may choose to work from home. There are also more and more people working ‘flexi-time’ shifts and four day weeks. All these changes have a massive effect on many things such as a better work life balance, less population and time saved on commenting etc.
The effect that I am most interested in is what this means for the work place. I am interest in how the office can accommodate these new types of work. There has been, for many years now, a system called ‘hotdesking’ by which an employee can go to another office (generally one the company they work for owns) and set-up work for the day/week etc on a free desk. But how does this work on a big scale? Surely you can just have twenty plus free desks always available?
I also believe that this rethink in spatial arrangement is necessary as many companies have had to make cut backs due to the recession. One of these cut backs has been on renting floor space, which has resulted in the companies having to make employees redundant or make them teleworkers.
Teleworking is a good way to save in many areas, however face-to-face contact is still needed to encourage teamwork and comradely between staff. Also meetings such as ‘blue sky’ meetings need to be conducted as a group. This is where a huge piece of paper is laid out along a big desk and everyone just sketches ideas.
These are the moments that I am interested in, how does the office accommodate these big meetings and lots of staff who are not usually there? I want to look at a way in which floor space can be best utilised: how desks can be easily altered or connect to allow an office to change into a boardroom ready for a presentation in minutes. I want the desks to have an interchangeable quality to them so they are easily individualised or possibly some sort of portable system which permits the number of desks in the office to change rapidly.
During my research I also discovered that teleworkers generally tend not to work from home; the reason given for this is that although they prefer the freedom of being away from the office they still prefer to be around like minded people. I feel that this presents a great opportunity for Centre Point to exploit; as they have floors free, which I would suggest that instead of renting them out to companies; they could rent the space to these individuals. This idea of freedom, versus being surrounded, is an odd dilemma and one which I will hopefully address in my proposal for this new space. 
what happens in these situation with extra desk and computors?
5 responses so far ↓
1 Andrei Toma // Mar 6, 2010 at 10:59 am
if you instigate the concept of reducing, how you willing to create support for diversity in developing opportunities for individuals on public corporate spaces?
You seem to place your concept at the boundary between the existing as a multidisciplinary flexible accumulation of times versus potential personal needs of individualisation within a framework of freedom.
How is this freedom going to affect the individual in which he places the connection with the existing society on which has been engaged to stand in the brink of environmental change over the growth of time?
Is this process willing to provide a world stand for individual to better cultural change?
2 michellecastle // Mar 8, 2010 at 6:31 am
Hi Andrei,
Thanks for the questions, i am not completely sure of what your asking but i’ll try to answer them the best i can (please let me know if I haven’t answered what your asking).
In term of reducing i am not sure if that’s the right term or way of think about this spatial shift i want to address. In a way I’am sure the reducing of fixed objects (tables and chairs) will come in to the design but I am (not in term of having less of them but maybe they are in a different form?) not sure at present if ‘reduction’ is the concept base.
In terms of individualising and supporting individuals, I’m not talking about every space to suit each and every individual, I am more interested in giving employees a choose of how they work (as a group a link or a separate units depending on the needs of the office/ works each day) with in this new environment to address a key concern that has been highlight throughout my research of this new ‘smart’ working system.
On the second question which I feel is linked to the first and I may have already answered your query. I am interested in the freedom of individuals or the feeling of freedom but it is my main interested. As I mentioned at the bottom of the introduction it is more of an idea I would like to incorporate rather then my main aim.
The third question about making a world stand is an interesting one! And to be honest I have only looked at the idea in terms of London and centre point specifically. As I mentioned above Centre Point suits this new kind of working pattern shift, however I am not sure this would work worldwide as I have no indication of how teleworking etc works in other countries and even if it’s a key issue.
I hope I have addressed your questions? What do you think about the proposal? do you think individualism is a key issues? I really like your analogue of the concept ‘You seem to place your concept at the boundary between the existing as a multidisciplinary flexible accumulation of times versus potential personal needs of individualisation within a framework of freedom.’ Do you feel this could be applicable worldwide?
3 Andrei Toma // Mar 8, 2010 at 7:28 am
When I feel the worldwide, I nurture the memory patterns in which the individual place the interaction with the world. If the interaction provides further disclosures interrogating every patterns, ,than yes, your concept could be applied worldwide, but as for now I can not see the way in which will evolve, as is still generalised around two main parameters : Individual and the reduction of needs.
4 ephraim // Mar 9, 2010 at 4:07 am
in terms of designing this; I find villa VPRO in the Netherlands (designed by MVRDV) a great example of re-negotiating an office interior. Great pictures on flickr
5 michellecastle // Mar 9, 2010 at 11:58 am
Hi Ephraim,
Thank you for the suggestion, I really like the concept MVRDV used in this project. The linking between the way in which work was carried out in the villas and the new building is really clever. I really like the use of materials used in the new offices as they related to the materials that already existed in the villa, which has made for a exciting and diverse work area. This quotation from MVRDV website about the project really stood out to me.
‘In other words, would informality be able to survive the increase in scale, would there be any point in retaining the villa as a metaphor?’
This is a really interesting idea that is highly applicable to my project. I feel this could be an interesting stance to take as a case study. I’m interested in the link between home and/or other bases for teleworkers and how they then relate to the office. If everyone employed were a teleworker (that could be the case) this would be an interesting analogy between home where they work (the villa) and Centre Point (Villa VPOR).
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