The Need for More Individual Spaces
360º: Which trends do you think are here to stay, and will change the way you plan to design space?
WE:
Most of the shifts we see happening are obviously related to meeting habits. Traditional ways to gather will be harder now because you can’t have everyone in the same room. If it is a large team, some will still have to use Teams or will have to be in a different room in the office even though everyone is in the same building. These “tweaks” will allow everyone to feel safe, but are affecting the ability of the team to generate ideas and co-create, as people do while they are physically together. So what we see are some very practical new habits we need to design for.
For example, having shorter meetings in an open space instead of an enclosed room is making people feel safer. Similarly, the need for small meeting booths or other individual spaces will be quite significantly higher than before COVID. On a higher perspective, designing for wellbeing will mean a need to increase the diversity of spaces people can choose from, and provide a variety of different options that will allow everyone to feel at ease.