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with the help of groupware. Some activities can be better completed by working with
concentration and without colleagues, for instance on laptops. In some cases, on the
other hand, this means distraction caused by the presence of the family. This is why
current discourses focus on the advantages as well as at the disadvantage of the op-
tion of working at home also from the point of view of the flexibilization of working
hours. Right now, working in the office as well as in the home office is actually being
questioned for the very first time. Yet only a few new concepts exist so far. At the same
time, science and practice have for many years been interested in knowing which
types of rooms encourage creative working, what communication and informal ex-
change in office environments have to do with innovation, when it makes more sense
for activities to be completed in the peace and quiet of the home or when it is better
in the company and how we should design optimal spatial conditions for this pur-
pose. Based on our own practical experience as well as our research results, it can be
assumed that creativity is promoted by informal encounters. Already in the past
years, places for unplanned encounters have been integrated in the room programmes
of well-designed office projects or, rather, have already been implemented in the form
of spacious staircases for lingering, extensions of hallway areas, flexible and homelike
furnishing in lobbies and lounges etc.

The third place: a co-creative area for knowledge work

Good examples and products in fact already exist for all the three places of knowledge
work: the home offices, the company headquarters and the coworking spaces as the
third places. Planned workplaces which promote creativity with unplanned exchange,
however, are mostly found in the second and the third place and exactly there they
Foto: Schnepp Renou only function if they have been designed in such a way that disturbances are avoided
as much as possible. This means taking acoustics, lighting, ergonomics and many

a trend which had already been looming according to experts in office planning: the
Kreativräume weichen gestalterisch vom Standard ab. • Creative rooms differ from the standards of design. other factors of interior architecture into consideration. The corona crisis accelerates
reinterpretation of the office from a purely factual place of work into a place of social
interaction. In future, an increasing number of employees will more precisely decide
N ot only due to the perceptions of the last 18 months, our working world is expe- why they are going to an office and for what purpose. In the digital era and with the
riencing a structural and elementary change. The increasing digitization forces
experience of the past months, this purpose can only be communication and interac-
us to turn and industrial into a knowledge society and thus also to find new concepts tive cooperation. The office thus loses its significance as the exclusive place of work
of working. We are nowadays developing away from our classic and rigid structures and also changes regarding the planning. In future, offices will first and foremost have
of working towards the new ways of working of the digital and the global era. For a to be places of encounter and promote communication and collaboration. The future
long time, this development and the thus resulting new working world has been con- creative spaces after the (corona-) home office will probably be exactly those third
nected to the New Work concept which has been established by Frithjof Bergmann. places which we establish ourselves – because we want to use them, because they
Over the past years, New Work as the notion of self-determined working has covered promote us, support us and are simply beneficial. The so-called third place will then
the complete field of knowledge work; there is hardly a business which can still afford be a co-creative place for knowledge work which, as a third place, will be more and
not to think about how and where work is being accomplished. The experience during more frequently seen in addition to the workstation in the company and in the home
the pandemic has further promoted this self-reflection all the way to a point where office. The issue is to offer the employees an alternative to the daily commuting to a
office buildings are completely put into question. It is, however, a fact that, today, in company headquarters as well as to the home office without social contacts. This
the field of knowledge work office buildings are no longer an accumulation of office third place is a combination of the advantages of the two workplaces in the company
cells with desks but places with manifold possibilities for exchanging information and and in the home office and offers further positive aspects beyond that: downsizing of
working. Especially now, with the experience from the home office with its limiting company headquarters since fewer workstations are necessary and these can be ar-
factors, the question arises as to how the co-creative rooms of the future will look and ranged at greater distances; reduction of the commuter flows; a closer link between
where they will be located. Modern knowledge workers spend a substantial part of people and the social environment at their places of residence; making the reactiva-
their lives working at workstations in their homes (first place), in meetings in the of- tion of offers in the rural area possible; access to specialists from the rural area for
fice (second place) and in a “third place”. The term “third place” is applied to a con- companies without these people having to move into urban regions and the compati-
cept created for all places of office work and is a transfer of “third place” from Ray Ol- bility with the various life models of different generations. A particularly vivid exam-
denburg’s publication A Great Good Place in the field of social sciences. Today, the ple is coworking in the rural area, for instance described in the study Urbane Dörfer –
work environment inside offices and also outside the classic office buildings has Wie digitales Arbeiten Städter aufs Land bringen kann. In a hybrid world of
today been taken over by the social and scientific relevance of the places which Ol- knowledge work, there are many places, such as airport lounges, hotel lobbies, libra-
denburg describes. Scientific studies show, among other findings, that the physical ries, coworking spaces, holiday homes or campervans which function as third places
proximity which is produced by people meeting in offices increases interaction, com- for working. Many of these places are per definition third places and more and more
munication between the employees as well as the visibility of leadership roles. The companies are discovering them as possible workplaces for their employees. By doing
spatial design of physical rooms has furthermore been proven to have an influence so, they are producing a decentralized offer for an increasing number of people and
on creativity. The possibility of individualizing offices premises as well has a measu- for the CVs of their employees. All these places virtually invite informal and unplan-
rable impact on the frequency of errors and the speed among the employees in the ned encounters and support creative and intuitive working. These places and their use
office and connections between mobility and effectiveness in meetings can likewise can thus make a significant contribution to how future office concepts will be desi-
be established. In the course of the global corona-virus pandemic, these efforts were gned and how a new standard of multi-local working could be defined for the future
contrary to the trend that employees are working in their home offices (“first place”) generation, far beyond the currently very limiting architectural office landscape.

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