OFFICE BUILDINGS

Dear Readers,

What seemed to be a short-term emergency solution has become a permanent institution in our working world over the past few months: the home office. So-called remote working has advanced from a stopgap solution to a new form of collaboration and raises the question of what the future of the classic office will look like after corona. According to surveys, home workers mainly miss physical encounters, communication with colleagues, quick, spontaneous exchanges in the tea kitchen. If complex tasks are to be solved in a creative community, office space will still be needed in the future, but will have to adapt to or complement the new requirements. Agility is the magic word! The new working model of the future is based on places of retreat for focused work. Cosy, individual and attractive furnishings promote the well-being of employees, their sense of belonging and their loyalty to the company. For our office issue at hand, we looked for and found convincing examples: excitingly different co-working spaces in Berlin, Barcelona and Minnesota and identity-creating company headquarters in Schlins, Madrid, Munich, Darmstadt and Berlin may serve as inspiration for you. The selected products for offices areas (from p. 42) and the optimisation of office acoustics (from p. 52) are intended to support you with the furnishing. We find it very interesting to look behind the scenes of planning offices. What is the outcome when interior designers or architects plan their own premises? Starting on page 86, we feature five recently designed interior/architectural offices: those of Coordination Berlin, schleicher.ragaller (picture above), Bernardo Bader, Georg Bechter (picture right) and cyrus moser. Eiermann desks, Bisley containers and galvanised industrial shelving are ancient history! The photo series “Restlicht” by HGEsch on the Osram Headquarters in Munich by Walter Henn (from p. 116) shows the transience of office giants — eerily beautiful! This is how diverse the office can be.

Best wishes
Petra Stephan, Dipl.-Ing.
Chief Editor
Architect