IN AN ERA WHERE you can have a trans-Atlantic
meeting from your sofa and businesses are increasingly
built around a globally dispersed workforce, the idea
of hundreds of people sitting in long rows in a single
building seems redundant. Yet major office developments
continue to spring up, showing that the corporate sector
still sees value in physical workspaces, although not nec-
essarily as we knew them before. As adviser to the likes
of Google, Accenture and the BBC, Despina Katsikakis
has been at the forefront of shaping the office of today.
Now head of occupier business performance at Cushman
& Wakefield, she outlines her vision for tomorrow.You’ve often referred to Herman Miller’s first product
catalogue from 1948, which defined the ideal working
environment as ‘a daytime living room’ that prioritizes
people rather than the space itself. Have we achieved
that goal? DESPINA KATSIKAKIS: I don’t think we
have. The realization that commercial real estate is not
about buildings but about people isn’t new, yet you see
it in only a few enlightened organizations. But I do think
that the historical focus on bricks and mortar is mov-
ing to the user experience. Two significant changes are
driving this move. First, large companies have become
much more reliant on agile, dispersed talent networks.
Second, they all employ technology-based innovation, so
suddenly everyone from banks and law firms to Googleand Facebook is competing for the same talent. These
factors are making businesses aware that the office is an
important tool for attracting and retaining people.The casual, fun office – ping-pong tables and breakout
areas – was largely pioneered by the tech sector. Is that
‘bubble’ model now outdated? A building is there to
enable people to perform and to do their best work. A
lot of these tech offices had a casual look because they
were aiming for learning and collaboration. Unfortu-
nately, many others simply picked visual references –
let’s put a red table in the middle of the room – without
thinking about whether such items were relevant to their
businesses. I’m hoping the next generation of work-
places can begin to address the ‘why’.
When advising on the design of 22 Bishopsgate,
a building in the City of London, we asked ourselves
this question: if you can work from anywhere, why do
you choose to go somewhere? I think you choose togo somewhere to feel inspired by the environment, to
connect with others and to be in a place that supports
your life. The concept was a vertical village designed to
drive wider connections. High-rise buildings are very
isolating places with lobbies that tend to be sterile. For
22 Bishopsgate, we wanted a building with a series of
destinations that connect people through food, events
and a climbing wall overlooking the City. If you’re in real
estate, you’re in hospitality – what landlords need to
provide are experiences, amenities and services that will
support people’s lives and communities.Does the physical office of a company with a dispersed
workforce take on an even greater role in maintaining
company culture? The symbolic role of the office has
changed. Historically, the office was hierarchical, and
its function was about having power and control over
what people did throughout the day. Today the symbolic
focus of the office revolves around reflecting brand
culture and value, and its function is to generate trust
and community. Those two facets enable staff to work
remotely, away from the office, in a way that’s effective
for the business. That’s the piece that people often miss.
Flexible working is a lot harder if employers don’t know
their people and haven’t established trust. A good office
design can be essential in building trust. Keep in mind,
however, that flexibility does not always mean mobility.Is there a danger of neglecting the needs of those who
oppose new ways of working? No. I think choice means
the ability to choose whatever suits you. We are not all
the same, but historically the office was designed for a
single function and to espouse a hierarchical system.
People need areas for both concentration and collabora-
tion. In the future, we will increasingly use a network
of fixed, flexible and on-demand spaces to suit our
changing priorities. The ability to offer flexible working
patterns, as well as an infrastructure to facilitate them, is
becoming more and more important to large companies
eager to attract the next generation of talent.
It’s vital from the employer’s side, too. Looking
ahead, I predict that every significant office building
will have a degree of flexible space to allow for com-
panies to grow and shrink as needed. Companies today
often bring in large project teams that collaborate
with them only temporarily. They don’t want to take
out a lease on another space, but they do want to have
those teams as closely integrated with their permanent
staff as possible. If you’re in a building that offers on-
demand flex, you’re already in a more robust position
to meet modern business needs.How has the shift in working patterns altered the rela-
tionship between the office and the wider city? Over the
past ten years, the city itself has been used as an office
and, conversely, the office has started to look more like
an urban environment – more permeable, diverse and
overlapping. Great cities are surprising and exciting. We
have an opportunity to activate the office in the same
way, to think of it as a stage set that evolves and facili-
tates serendipitous encounters.
The fact that many of us no longer need to
commute to the city centre every day can be seen as a
reason for reinvigorating local and regional high streets,
as well as transport centres. The resulting community
locations can accommodate workplaces. It’s something
I suggested to one of our large banking clients years
ago – that they could use the traditional retail bank as
a touchdown point for their customers, in essence like
a co-working environment. ●
cushmanwakefield.com‘The office has started to
look more like an urban
environment – more
permeable, diverse and
overlapping’
FRAME LAB 135