Research

After choosing the brief to create an office area for the future, the first thing I wanted to do was properly research. After going to the library I found books such as 'Tomorrow's Office' and 'Reinventing the Workplace'

Another source of research I looked into was the programme, 'The secret life of buildings'. This was a programme where architecture critic, Tom Dyckhoff, explores the impact the design of buildings can have on us - on our identity and self-esteem, and on relationships, our chances at school, and even our weight and immune system. There was one particular episode which focused on our office spaces.  

The programme synopsis:

"Tom Dyckhoff makes some revelatory and shocking discoveries about how the buildings in which we spend our working life can physically change our brain, and shows why open-plan offices are bad spaces to work in.

Armed with this new knowledge, Dyckhoff meets and challenges pre-eminent architects including Norman Foster and Zaha Hadid to re-evaluate their creations.

He brings them face-to-face with the people who use their buildings every day. He even tries working in their buildings himself while taking part in an experiment to measure the impact on his brain.

What do the results show about working in these spaces? Have we become so obsessed with iconic exteriors that we've stopped thinking about the people inside them?

And is it possible to design a building that makes us feel happy while making us more productive too?"

Bibliography:

Worthington, J (1997). Reinventing the Workplace. 2nd ed. London: Architectural Press.
Raymond, S (1997). Tomorrow's Office. Hong Kong: Taylor and Francis