The Evolution of Working Environments

The evolution of working environments demands attention to change and specialized design.

A long corridor and rooms on either side — this is the image that our government offices have presented of the work environment for more than fifty years. Private centers, too, despite some differences in scale, have generally not deviated from this model. The images projected of work environments have been so monotonous that virtually everyone associates a tedious and dull space with office work.

With the existence of computers, the Internet, and communications in their broad form, these types of environments can no longer continue to exist. To arrive at organized and responsive contemporary spaces, two stages must be traversed: first, the acknowledgment that change in work environments exists; and second, understanding how this change should take place, by whom, and who has the competence for idea generation in this domain.

Our main problem lies in this second part — the acceptance of the necessity for specialized work. Due to the flourishing of commercial competition and the desire for self-expression, the interior design of workplaces has found a field for expression, but often these designs are meant to flaunt the owner's wealth rather than serve functional needs. Extravagance in furniture without considering function, the thoughtless adoption of trends, and cramming predefined office fixtures into residential apartments that were never designed for work all create disorder.

A Traditional Office in Tehran

A large area is dedicated to the conference table and manager's desk — empty and useless during working hours.

The furniture of a room that has turned into an office. Manager's desk at the conference room.

In this issue, after a look at the example of an office in Tehran — created from the conversion of a small two-bedroom apartment using market resources — we turn to the particular response and free design of two brothers for the Vitra office in Paris.

Vitra's New Office in Paris

Ronan Bouroullec and his twenty-five-year-old brother Erwan are currently among the most prominent designers in Paris. Their collaboration began in 1999. In an interview conducted in October 2001, they said of their work:

Vitra's new office in Paris. Source: Domus 853, November 2002.

The Vitra Company had considered redefining work spaces since the late 1950s. With the help of George Nelson, Mario Bellini, Antonio Citterio, Alberto Meda, and Jasper Morrison, it worked toward transforming the monolithic structure of offices. The result in the early 1990s was the Citizen Office design, where Ettore Sottsass, Michele de Lucchi, and Andrea Branzi proposed fundamental reforms.

Vitra had become convinced that the time had come to change offices from masses of furniture into self-organized spaces — where unforeseen movements, dynamism of ordinary encounters, and informal relationships are organized. The new work environment should take the form of a communication network where every individual can be close to everyone else while maintaining personal characteristics and private spaces.

This long table at the center of the space defines a particular relationship with the context and gives individuals the freedom to shape their own space.

Work teams in the new offices are constantly forming, changing, and evolving. The Bouroullec brothers' design strives to facilitate these changes.

The Bouroullec brothers transform the entire workspace into one large meeting hall while simultaneously creating the possibility for individuals to work independently. The ability for rapid adaptation of the work environment is one of the important characteristics of this furniture — accommodating any change in activities without need for a specialist.

They expressed the complexity of their ideas by changing accepted old concepts: freeing themselves from conventional office furniture and thinking instead of spaces like a bar counter, living room seating, telephone cabin, and garden. This intersection of space categories has allowed them to achieve an open organization in which the possibility of growth, change, and transformation has been foreseen.

Modular design elements of the Vitra workspace.

The Bouroullecs added elements such as telephone cabins to express attention to private spaces within the freedom of the overall space.