Financial Times Europe - 21.03.2020 - 22.03.2020

8 ★ FT Weekend 21 March/22 March 2020

A

s the coronavirus forces

many of us to work from

home, now is the time to

consider the strange hybrid

space of the home office.

We find ourselves jabbing away at our

keyboards in strange places, a kind of

interior limbo. I have beenworking

from home or 25 years, and I knowf

what I am doing. Here is my advice for

what you will really need over the com-

ing unsettling weeks and months.

A dedicated space

You may not haveroom at home for a

separate office but, if it can be done,

make it a priority. If not, then under

no circumstances try to make a “home

office” out of a hopeless space that can-

not be turned to any other use —

a half-landing, a cubbyhole beneath

the stairs, a bit of leftover corri-

dor. It will feel temporary and

uncomfortable, a domestic exile.

If you are short of

space, try to reimagine

a part of the living area

as a temporary office —

one end of the sofa

or a dining table,

for example. It is bet-

ter to be in a decent room

with natural light than

an ad-hoc corner beside the

vacuum cleaner.

A desk

This is every-

thing, the home-

worker’s battlefield and control cen-

tre. Do not be seduced by Ikea’s desks in

cutesy room settings; they will never

feel of high-enough quality. Buy some-

thing old. Victorian and Edwardian

desks made from lovely warm wood can

be picked up for peanuts at auction. I

bought a massive mid-century Danish

desk in teak about 15 years ago. It cost

more than I could afford, but it has

bookshelves and drawers that open and

shut perfectly. It is too big for every

home office I have ever had. But it has

plenty of space for mess.

Mess

The aesthetics of untidiness divides

opinion. Some are deeply displeased by

stacks of paper and piles of books, but I

like them. Papers, notebooks, desk

lamps and books are a kind of colonisa-

tion, the demarcation of a surface. I am

surrounded by my own creation. The

stacks are an opportunity to create an

architecture of text with my own hands,

to model my own environment, build it

and change it.

A chair

This is one of the trickiest

items to get right. You will

want a comfortable model,

like the one you had in the

office-office. It looked fine

there but will look ridiculous

i n y o u r h o m e a n d m a k e

everything else look wrong.

I have compromised by buy-

ing a cheap(ish) fake version of

a b e a u t i f u l c h a i r b y a f a m o u s

designer that looks as if it should

be comfortable.

A window

Critical, this. Your window is a visual

umbilical to the real world. The clouds,

the sky, the sun, the birds, the trees,

the buildings and people create an

animated collage of subtle and con-

stant change, even if your view is, like

mine, rubbish. Too much time staring

out of the window begins to look like

time-wasting. But, in fact, most office

work is time-wasting anyway, and

looking out of the window is a legiti-

mate and enjoyable pastime, usually

accompanied by some light form of

thinking. Which is work.

A window: part II

Windows are two -way. We have

become weirdly inured to this, per-

haps by spending too much time in

front of screens, which are mostly

one-way. If, like me, your home office

is in a converted garage or agarden

shed, you will, from twilight onwards,

be presented to the world in an illumi-

nated frame. Every-

thing you do — includ-

i n g t i m e s p e n t n o t

working — is visible,

inside and outside.

You become a kind

of local artwork, a

marker or presence,

eyes on the street.

You become an illus-

tration of a person perenni-

ally pretending to do work.

Lights

Very important. If you

are lucky, you will

have natural light for

part of the day but you

will need artificial light at other times.

Never leave all the work to ceiling lights.

You may have a single bare bulb hanging

from a ceiling rose. This is the worst

option and will make you nauseous.

Halogens are better, but only as back-

ground. What you really need is a big,

adjustable desk lamp. An Anglepoise is

good. I have two, which take up a lot of

space, but they allow me to change the

mood from brooding darkness relieved

by a single pool of light, to twin beams or

blinding light with everything on — the

visual equivalent of a double espresso.

Which reminds me...

Coffee maker

No aesthetic parameters here, just

make it good.

A reading chair

This is optional, but sometimes you will

need to read. If you have space for a sec-

ond, comfortable chair,occupy it. It will

make you feel like your environment has

changed without leaving your office. I

have a choice of Modernist steel-and-

leather chairs by famous architects,

which are not quite as comforta-

ble as they look, but one

has proved extremely

usefulfor piling up old

newspapers. The other

has room underneath

for storage.

Walls

Do not confuse your home office

with a dumping ground, in which

all the second-rate crap deemed not

good enough for the rest of the house is

exiled. If a picture is too ropy, dated,

faded or uninteresting for the living

room, it is no good for the home office,

either. Neither is your workspace a cup-

board. If you store old furniture in here,

it will make you feel as if you are in a

cels and vast food shops to your

neighbours.Some of them will be

out at work, so they will end up at

your door. As you are looking out of

your window you will be anticipat-

ing this, which means there will

be a long gap while you

watch the driver fiddle

with his tablet before,

inevitably, ending up

at your door — an interval

in which you will be unable

to work. And your hallway will

look like an Amazon distribu-

tion warehouse.

You will develop a quiet dread of

For Sale signs — this means endless

noise. No one moving into any

house, no matter how huge or

recently modernised, can ever

complete their move without

adding an extra storey or a kitchen

extension the size of an aircraft carrier.

This will mean intermittent noise, which

will leave you on the edge of your attrac-

tive-looking office chair waiting for the

next round of pneumatic hammers or

drilling through concrete walls. Your

teeth will vibrate. Magpies are a nui-

sance, too, along with car alarms, smoke

detectors, planes, vintage motorbikes,

police sirens and much, much else.

Workwear

The working-at-home fashion question

leaves me cold. Some insist that being

able to lounge around in pyjamas, rag-

ged dressing gowns or sweat pants is a

joy, while others dress up as if going out

to work in case they need to make a

video call or just to make them feel like

fully functional human beings, part of

productive society. The irony is that

some people who work from home end

up looking homeless. You will find your

niche, but not having to wear uncom-

fortable shoes all day is an advantage.

Books

I have lined my walls with books so no

wall is showing except for a small sec-

tion of bare painted brick above the

door. If you work with words, then what

is betterthan to surround yourself with

them? There are the reference books,

which I use less and less, but also novels,

folios and magazines. Change them

around occasionally. When you get

stuck, open something at any page. It

almost certainly will not help but at

least you will be justifying keeping all

those books.

The rest of the home

Remember that we all work at home: we

think in the bath, we write emails while

watching films, look at news during

breakfast and mull over ideas and per-

ceived slights in bed. We are all home

workers now, but having a dedicated

space gives you a place to do it so that

when you are there you know you are

working, and when you are not you are

relieved of all other responsibilities.

Ghettoise your work. Make it not an

exile but a relief.

Edwin Heathcote is the FT’s

architecture critic

We are

all home

workers now

WFH The coronavirus has propelled thousands|

of us into a twilight zone between the sofa and the

stairs. Help is at hand. ByEdwin Heathcote

simulacrum of an office and impart a

sense of redundancy. You are working.

You are not in temporary storage.

Doors

Even more useful than walls. A closed

door is a sign that you are at work. It is,

unfortunately, illegible to children.

Family photographs

Don’t do it — you are at home. Mostly,

your family will be a few metres away.

Go take a look occasionally instead.

Tools

A laptop is ideal as it can be closed,ena-

bling youto use your desk for something

else. There is no IT department at home,

soinvest in a goodcomputer and back it

up (I have not backed mine up). Unless

you live in South Korea, your broadband

(Clockwise from

top) Designer Ray

Eames, Eames

House, 1950;

Edwin Heathcote

in his converted

garage; Sigmund

Freud’s study;

Anglepoise

Original 1227

desk lamp;

sepulchral

chamber and

sarcophagus of

Seti I by

candlelight,

Sir John Soanes

Museum; Alessi

Moka espresso

coffee maker;

Vitra chair EA117

Peter Stackpole/The LIFE

Picture Collection via Getty

Images; Tom Jamieson; Freud

Museum London/

K. Urbaniak; Gareth Gardner

Your workspace is not a

cupboard. You are

working. You are not in

temporary storage

BSt Martin de Belleville, France, €2.9m

Where rench Alps, 1 hour and 20 minutesF

to Chambéry airport.

WhatA five-bedroom chalet with a sauna,

Jacuzzi and mountain views. You can ski

to the front door.

Why he 19 sq m study has a south-facingT

balcony, overlooking the ski resort.

WhoFree Spirit Alpine

ILe Lavandou, Côte

d’Azur, France, €4.9m

WhereHalf an hour to

St-Tropez Airport.

WhatA 10-bedroom villa

with 1.6 acres of land and

sea views.

WhyThe study has a

fireplace, exposed beams

and access to a terrace.

WhoKnight Frank

BPark Avenue, New York City, $2.4m

WhereMurray Hill, New York City. It is a

30-minute drive to JFK.

WhatA 1,440 sq ft two-bedroom condo with

use of concierge, sundeck and gym.

WhyThe study has an en-suite bathroom

with custom shelving, an inbuilt desk and

city views.

WhoDouglas Elliman

BAlexander Square, London, £5.9m

Where outh Kensington, west London. It isS

a 40-minute drive to Heathrow airport.

WhatA Grade II-listed three-bedroom

townhouse situated on a garden square,

with four reception rooms and a wine cellar.

WhyThe study has ceilings over 10ft high

with views over the west-facing garden.

WhoRussell Simpson

H OT P RO P E RT Y

H OM E S W I T H

O F F I C E S

ByEdin Imsirovic

House Home

and WiFi will be rubbish and a

source of anguish.

A food-free zone

Unless your home office is

literally on the edge of the

dining-room table, your

desk is not a dining table. Eat

elsewhere. Eating at your desk is an

oppression forced on office workers

who need to look busy or who have

squandered their lunch hour on some-

thing else.

A good aural environment

Offices should be noisy and homes

should be quiet. Often, the reverse is

true. You will be amazed by how

much goes on around you, in even

the quietest street. Vans will

arrive all day, delivering tiny par-

MARCH 21 2020 Section:Weekend Time: 18/3/2020- 18:30 User:rosalind.sykes Page Name:RES8, Part,Page,Edition:RES, 8, 1