Work from [Anywhere]

We recently read an article with some stats that we’d like to share:

• “83% [of workers] do not believe they need to be in an office to be productive”
• “70% (aged 16-44 years) want to be more mobile at work”
• “88% use smartphones for work daily”

Let’s face it, we spend the majority of our days at work, working, or traveling to and from work. Our society moves fast, our business worlds move even faster. We’re building bigger, expanding broader.

Work from the Office, Work While You Travel, Work From Home – Work From Anywhere

 

We reach further distances to find work, we commute further distances to get to work. As the world gets smaller, the ground we traverse seems to be greater. The time we spend for work – whether working, traveling, or commuting – ends up draining the majority of our 24 hour day, and we, in turn, end up drained.

We’re wired, we’re tired, we’re always connected. We pull out our laptops or tablets or smartphones at coffee shops, at restaurants, in parks, on streets, at beaches, in airports… in planes, trains, and automobiles… We’ve become always-accessible, always digital. And that won’t go away, we don’t think anyone wants it to.

But, what we do think is that we need respite, we need compromise, and we need flexibility.

 

Office developments a few years ago started realizing this. They realized the need to provide space for their employees that diversifies the work environments so they remain happy and motivated, foster creativity and promote wellness and collaboration. We’ve seen an increase in open floorplans and collaborative studio environments that break down physical and imaginary walls, break down row after row of cubicles. We’ve seen an increase in communal space, an investment in kitchens and game rooms rather than small, too bright break rooms. We’ve seen an investment in exterior lawns, shaded seating, park trails, barbecues, and fire features. All in effort to retain and attract top talent so the business can continue to thrive and race forward. Where does a lot of this top talent demographic fall? Right within in the 16-44 years of age stat above.

 

We’ve now run into a pandemic which has forced many people into a remote or mobile work situation. It has forced us into an experiment that will, as many companies had already figured out, inevitably lead to a holistic change in our working conditions moving forward. However, it has further pushed employees out of dense and expensive big cities for more space, cheaper land, greener pastures. It has eliminated the congested traffic and hours of commutes, and the time spent at the offices we spent so much time getting to and living at.

As we continue to pick back up from this societal setback, those office spaces will remain of value to employees and employers required to return to a physical office. But, what about those who don’t? Or those who don’t need as much space as they did before? As we’ve learned in this forced experiment many of us don’t… we still feel productive while remote, and we seem to desire mobility. Perhaps that the new way to retain and attract top talent.

So what happens to those who remain in dense urban growth centers, looking to escape the WFH confines of their 1 bedroom flats in exchange for space, for greenspace, for nature, for peace?

We believe they need flexibility. Flexibility to “work from anywhere.”

We see multi-family and mixed-use developments containing additional and more diverse sets of spaces, varying in size from small group to communal, and spread throughout the communities, both indoors and out. They’ll need to be wired for a connected world, inspired to stimulate creativity, and technologically integrated for social interaction. And in they’ll need to be baked into a transit-oriented fabric to escape to the peace of nature, to the community of park, to the collaboration of co-work, to the smell of coffee and pastries.

It will be critical to ensure our multi-family housing developments, similar to their office predecessors, offer a diverse set of differentiated experiences that are digitally wired indoors and out, and transit-connected.

 

At LandStudio360, we are grateful to have a diverse group of people that allow us to use each team member’s experience and network to grow. The unique circumstances of working remotely while remaining connected have encouraged our team to think strategically and expand our knowledge of the industry and possible ways to re-think exterior spaces going forward. 

We’re here to help assess design challenges and provide creative solutions for this constantly changing world. Connect with us and let’s get working together.