The office—the actual one, not the TV show—is where many of us spend the majority of our weekdays, if not weekends as well, from the time we graduate from school or college, until we retire. This makes it literally the second most important place in our lives after our homes; it is no wonder that the evolution of the office reflects, to great extent, our own evolution. Indeed, the history of the office illustrates not only how our work has changed, but also how physical workspaces respond to cultural, technological, and social forces.
Offices of Yesteryears
Offices have existed in some shape or form throughout history as a means of a person, or body of people, to conduct official administrative business. It is based on the Roman Latin officium; a term loosely meaning “bureau”. In ancient Rome, it was not so much a specific place or building, but the people within it; hence, the phrase “The Office of the Prime Minister”, for example.
In Medieval Times, however, offices were rare, as most people worked from home. It was not until the 17th century that lawyers, civil servants, and other new professionals began to work from offices in Amsterdam, London, and Paris. This led to a cultural distinction between the office, associated with work, and the home, associated with comfort, privacy and intimacy.
It is difficult to fathom the idea that gigantic, multi-functional organizations did not exist in quite the same size and relative complexity as Roman bureaucratic government until the 18th century. At that time, organizations were established to further Britain’s interests overseas; to manage their incredibly varied tasks and organization, a central base of operations needed to be built.
In the early 20th century, many factors came together to give rise to the modern office. The invention of electric lighting allowed employees to work without expensive gas lighting or many windows. Typewriters and calculation machines allowed for the processing of vast amounts of information. Communication devices, as the telegraph and telephone, allowed office buildings to be situated away from factories, homes, and even countries of operation, without losing control over them.
The Ascension of the Office
The Industrial Revolution had completely modernized manual labor and production; office design would now modernize white collar, professional labor in a similar fashion. Office designs have cycled through competing demands though; openness vs. privacy, interaction vs. autonomy. This evolution took place to reflect the changing attitudes towards work.
In the early 1900s, the earliest modern offices were remarkable for their emphasized efficiency and the adoption of a rigid, regimented office layout. The “Taylorist Office”, following the methodology of American Engineer Frederick Taylor, crowded workers together in a completely open environment, while bosses looked on from private offices, much like on a factory floor. There has been much criticism of this approach, as it failed to take into consideration human and social elements, and focused exclusively on ensuring employers gained maximum productivity from their staff.
Expensive land prices, together with the invention of the lift and steel-frame construction, allowed for the rise of skyscrapers in 20th-century Chicago and New York, leading to the rapid evolution of office design. Larger workforces could be moved into open plan offices, working in natural light or under electric lighting; soundproofing and partitioning provided the necessary isolation of employees.
As skyscrapers and other large commercial buildings were developed, the workplace altered to become a space where there was a mix of private offices and open plan workstations; in some cases, a dedicated staff kitchen or canteen. The 1930s gave rise to more aesthetically pleasing offices; the “Streamlined Office” was developed in tandem with architecturally modernist buildings based on “the coming together of a society”. A more modern space for workers was achieved using bright lights, warm spaces, and cork ceilings, which played a major role in absorbing office acoustics, to compensate for the lack of interaction with the outside world.
The 1950s brought further advances into building with modern materials, as steel and glass. The smart, clinical architecture of the international modern movement was adopted as the new image of corporate business. With the widespread use of advanced air-conditioning and fluorescent lighting, high-rise buildings had very little need for natural light or ventilation through opening windows. With these technological developments, the corporate office became completely autonomous from the outside world, with wider, more open plan floors where workers could be placed virtually anywhere.
The Revolution of the Office
The German “Office Landscape” brought the socialist values of 1950s’ Europe to the workplace; management was no longer indulged in executive suites. Based on progressive, socio-democratic principles, the system recognized and allowed for wide diversity of different office work; hence, encouraging staff of multiple levels to sit and work together, in an effort to improve collaboration and communication in the office environment.
Unlike its strict, regimented predecessors, Office Landscape consisted of free and open plans of furniture scattered in large, rather organically-divided spaces with different environments divided less rigidly and creatively using partitions and plants, depending on the type and function of workers inhabiting them. For example, workers in creative fields, like advertising or media, could be grouped loosely where they could easily interact more frequently; whereas more bureaucratic, corporate staff was situated in more regimented, subdivided areas.
The Subjection of the Office
The sheer nature of the Office Landscapes’ open, scattered, and charmingly random layout did not lend itself well to worldwide adoption. As it evolved, a new approach created by Herman Miller and known as the “Action Office” emerged in the late 1960s. The first modular business furniture system, with low dividers and flexible work surfaces, it differed in that it included a variety of alternate work settings for staff, increased freedom of movement, provided a greater degree of privacy when working, and mitigated noise issues. The model is still in production today and is widely used; you probably know it by its generic, more disturbing name “the Cubicle”.
In the 1980s, the “Cube Farm” was the cubicle concept taken to the extreme. As the ranks of middle managers swelled, a new class of employee was created; too important for a mere desk, but too junior for a window seat. Facilities’ managers accommodated them in the cheapest way possible, with modular walls; the sea of cubicles was born. The manifestation of the Action Office taken to its absolute dystopian limits, the infamous Cubicle Farm was born because senior executives were less interested in the well-being of their workers than they were in their profitability.
Furniture designers tried to part the sea of cubicles and encourage sociability—without going nuts. Knoll, for example, created systems with movable, semi-enclosed pods and connected desks the shape of which separates work areas rather than dividers. However, it took the advent of technology in the workplace to force companies to look at office design in a more holistic, human-centered manner.
The Modern Office Conundrum
The character of office work evolves constantly, together with the scope of duties, technology development, changing management style, and employees’ needs. The process of office evolution can be presented by three transitions: from stationary to mobile work, from routine to conceptual work, and from individual to team work.
As of the 1990s, the World Wide Web brought with it the development of an office phenomenon first seen at the turn of the 20th century. Widespread new technology, the Internet, laptops, and mobiles could move offices, workers, and work away from the typical office and their desk, ushering in a golden period for office design where new, more flexible ways of working such as Agile and Activity Based Working (ABW) became increasingly popular.
Mobility means working in different office zones, not only at one’s desk. External mobility is becoming popular as well; it is based on remote work from home, a cafe, business trips, or different departments. As mobility became the norm, office design began to embrace “Hot-Desking” where staff are not allocated space, but rather picked an available space to work from. This system saves space, utilizes new communication technology to save money, promotes a more flexible working environment, and encourages more collaboration.
These advances in office design seek to change the working culture of the organization; nevertheless, this type of “Virtual Office” has its drawbacks. In the actual office environment, it can be difficult for employees to identify or feel at home. Even the dreaded cubicle was territorial, allowing for workers to customize their own space; hot-desking, however, meant employees were less grounded.
Moreover, duties that were based on routine, repetitive tasks in the past are now changing into more conceptual mental work that requires focus and concentration. Modern offices based on the open space concept do not provide employees with proper conditions for performing those tasks. Research confirms that noise and lack of possibilities to work quietly are the biggest disadvantages of open spaces.
A great number of Dot-Com Companies in the late 1990s embraced smaller, quirkier, more colorful offices that aligned with their progressive, exciting new image. Designed to encourage highly-personalized workspaces suited for long hours spent programming, analyzing data, building links, or designing graphics, the quirky, casual offices retained elements of the Open Plan, only with zany, loud color schemes, and novel themes. A sense of fun was also instilled with the addition of leisure areas and creative spaces with pinball machines, beanbags, table tennis tables, and dart boards. The dress code had become much more relaxed than the conventional suits and ties of the previous century and the layouts had to reflect this.
The emergence of the “Casual Office” space, inspiring communication and collaboration amongst employees, shows significant flaws for many of its overly-sociable occupants. Miscellaneous noises, abrasive music, and other distractions are among the worst complaints, as well as lack of privacy. The lack of a quiet, territorial space also means many employees finding themselves interrupted by their colleagues, which in turn negatively impacts their work. However, locking employees away in private offices, never to communicate or collaborate with their colleagues, leads to other issues.
Contemporary, responsive spaces that remain open, but separate, allow for collaboration, inspiration, mobility, and the completion of specialist projects without the worry of crowding or disruptions from one working style to another. Agile working environments allow staff to work effectively in different environments within the same space. Workplace wellbeing initiatives not only save money through boosting productivity and reducing absence from work, but they also make staff feel valued, and produce a far more effective, cohesive, and motivated workforce.
For this reason, many forward-thinking companies have taken the changes necessary to improve workplace wellbeing into account when designing and fitting out a new office space. As the history of office design continues to unfold, today it has reached a point where the modern workplace takes inspiration from the home, through the use of warm colors, intimate lighting, and soft seating.
In a world that is becoming more and more conscious of the negative effects of greenhouse gases, the growing scarcity of fossil fuels, and the financial benefits of energy efficiency, office design has also started moving towards incorporating sustainability as a core principle. As well as benefitting the environment, energy efficiency and cutting waste benefits companies by saving significant amounts of money that would otherwise be wasted on fuel bills, stationery costs, and temporary “quick fixes” that do not ultimately remedy inefficiency problems.
Throughout the evolution of office design, many design elements have come, gone, resurfaced and repurposed. From the white-collar assembly line across the great factory floors of the Taylorist Office, to the territorial-yet-trapping Cubicle Farm, the majority of office design has been an extension of the capitalist business ethos: productivity, cost-efficiency, and growth. However, the employee has become the center of the office design blueprint. Companies are realizing that productivity begins with the producers, from the managers at the top to the trainees at the bottom.
The key to increasing productivity and the way forward for businesses is to look after their employees, nurture their growth, encourage their skill development, then retain them. The most important, basic elements of company success lie in employee cultivation, and that starts with the blueprints and evolution of the humble office space.
References
gsa.gov
k2space.co.uk
morganlovell.co.uk
nowystylgroup.com
theconversation.com
This article was first published in print in SCIplanet, Spring 2018.
Cover: Image by freepik