Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, office design was being reimagined. A few companies had dipped their toes into the remote work pool, offering hoteling, laptop lockers, and open workspaces and hubs where workers could collaborate. But as more companies adapted to working remotely during the pandemic, employees, C-suite executives, and designers have had an opportunity to rethink the office space and plan for the new reality of the world of work.
Many company leaders and employees have shifted their attitudes about the nature of work. The great remote work experiment has proved that many people can be productive working from spaces other than the traditional office. Corporate leaders have begun to more fully understand that where employees work has implications for space design, as well as how companies allocate capital and manage staff. Many companies have opted for a hybrid model in which employees split time between their homes and the office.
With more relaxed social distancing restrictions and people craving human connection, what does it mean to go back to the office? How can the office be beneficial to employee productivity, engagement, and well-being? “Top-performing companies understand the power of the physical workplace for their people to thrive, as well as for it to drive creativity and innovation,†says Natalie Engels, work sector leader, design director, and principal at Gensler.
Here are five trends in post-pandemic workplace design:
People want a compelling reason to commute to the workplace. “It has a new role as a destination, a place where employees can find experiences they can’t get working remotely,†Engels says.
But it’s not about setting up Ping-Pong tables and beanbag chairs. A recent Gallup study found that an informal work environment is the least important factor among millennial job seekers and that only 18 percent of them report that a “fun place to work†is extremely important.
People are, though, looking for a way to be joyful again, to socialize and collaborate, Engels says. “Isolation took its toll.â€
Making the office a real draw includes asking employees about their needs and getting buy-in, and determining the best mix of open space and private space.
While online meetings connected people, new hires, younger employees, and those who entered the workforce during the pandemic have missed out on the organic education that happens in a physical workplace—chats around the proverbial watercooler, a chance meeting in a hallway, an overheard conversation among colleagues about how to solve a problem. Offices need spaces to encourage those interactions, and Gallup’s study supports that need, as nearly 6 out of 10 millennials say that opportunities to discover new insights are important to them when they’re applying for a job.
The open floor plan was thought to be the way to create these gathering spaces, but post-pandemic design is more curated. Since people are no longer tied to desktops, they can bring their computers to spaces that are flexible in use, says Nathan Ferrance, senior interior designer at global design firm HKS, which designed ACEC’s new office (see sidebar below). These spaces—lounge areas, café tables, accessible kitchen areas, open flex offices—make good spots for chance encounters.
While the open office with few walls, doors, or spatial boundaries was de rigueur for years, it had myriad problems, including noise issues. A 2021 Gensler survey found that 44 percent of workers wanted totally or mostly private offices post-pandemic, while only 28 percent wanted totally or mostly open spaces.
Despite this, a 2022 Gensler design forecast reported that workers still want a variety of places to work: “Third places and coworking spaces are increasingly preferred for a variety of work activities.â€
The key is for individual companies to find the ideal ratio between public and private workspaces, Engels says.
One popular design layout is the “neighborhood hub,†where enclosed spaces like offices, meeting rooms, and team rooms are grouped together around a common area—often creating a protection for the open collaboration area. Within the open area, Engels suggests, “there might be some taller elements, a hard wall or furniture wall that provides enough acoustic separation between office spaces/phone rooms, and you would have enough space for people to be able to sit and do laptop/task work, taller tables for people to casually meet with meeting screens/whiteboards, and taller booths for protective, impromptu meeting work.â€
“Top-performing companies understand the power of the physical workplace for their people to thrive, as well as for it to drive creativity and innovation.â€
NATALIE ENGELS
WORK SECTOR LEADER, DESIGN DIRECTOR,
AND PRINCIPAL
GENSLER
Deloitte reports that employee engagement “tends to be at its highest among employees who work remotely 60 to 80 percent of the time.†In the new normal, most companies won’t stick with the binary choice of all virtual or all in-office. Most are opting for a combination, where people can do telework when needed and come to an office for collaborative, teambased work.
Many companies that have adopted a hybrid model have downsized their offices to use space more efficiently since they no longer have their entire staff coming in every day. Some organizations have adopted desk-sharing arrangements like hot desking and hoteling. Hot desking requires employees to claim desks on a first-come, first-served basis. Hoteling offers a more organized approach in which employees reserve a spot in advance via an app or other reservation system. Hoteling can encourage employees to make the most of their time in the office by booking desks in close proximity to their teammates for collaboration purposes.
Andrew Keaschall, Illinois division manager of Alfred Benesch and Company, said his firm found hoteling had some drawbacks since the full staff wasn’t in the office concurrently. “It was almost counterproductive to collaborate with half the people in the office and half virtual,†he says.
They’ve now implemented collaboration days on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and almost all 60 employees are in the office together. Employees schedule large group meetings on those days. “The premise was to balance business needs and flexibility,†Keaschall says.
Benesch’s office is a whole floor in a Chicago high-rise, which the company built out in 2019. That included upgrades to wiring, technology, and videoconferencing equipment. They opted for workstations in an open floor plan but have since put in higher, clear plexiglass barriers to maintain the open feel but offer more germ protection.
Engels says that upgrading technology really helps to make these new work arrangements successful, adding that companies will need to experiment more.
“Maybe our phones become a point of security or know when I’m coming into the office and book me into an available conference room,†she says.
“The premise was to balance business needs and flexibility.â€
ANDREW KEASCHALL
ILLINOIS DIVISION MANAGER
ALFRED BENESCH AND COMPANY
In light of COVID-19, it’s also crucial for employees to feel they’re returning to an office that won’t facilitate illness. Sometimes that’s about “infrastructure—what people cannot necessarily see or appreciate, such as mechanical systems,†Engels says.
Post-pandemic, this is particularly true of HVAC systems, improved air filtration, and the ability to import fresh, clean air. According to the EPA, people spend approximately 90 percent of their time indoors, whether in offices, cars, or homes, where concentrations of some pollutants are often two to five times higher than typical outdoor concentrations. “We should not be in buildings that can make people ill,†Engels says. “We have technology that can detect and notify us about indoor air quality and the ability to remedy it.â€
And with an increasing number of workers reporting feeling burned out, hopeless, and exhausted, mental health issues are on the rise as well. Enter biophilic design and office layouts that encourage collaboration, socialization, and movement—all of which can help improve mental and physical well-being.
Biophilic design includes the use of natural light, plants, water, views of nature, and access to the outdoors. Numerous studies have shown nature’s benefits on individual well-being, productivity, and creativity. In office spaces, these concepts can manifest themselves in living walls featuring plant life, planters used as barriers or wayfinding devices, the use of wood beams to suggest tree trunks, interior lighting that mimics the outdoors, large images of nature posted on conference room walls, and large windows to bring in as much natural light as possible.
“During the pandemic, people were happy to get outside to work, walk, breathe fresh air, and feel the sunlight,†Engels points out. “It has made those in building design look at how people can have access to that and how to design for it in floor plans. It has been a huge ask from every generation.â€
Stacey Freed is a writer based in Pittsford, New York, who has contributed to This Old House, Professional Builder, and USA Today.
ACEC’S NEW HEADQUARTERS checks all the post-pandemic design boxes to bring employees back to a healthy, lightfilled, and dynamic space.
Located on the fourth floor of 1400 L Street, NW, in Washington, D.C., ACEC’s new office is 15,000 square feet in a newly renovated building known as The Aleck.
ACEC’s previous office was only a block and a half away, and in that building, the departments were siloed from each other in their own offices. “It could feel dark and almost like a bowling alley with its long corridors,†says Erin McLaughlin, former vice president of private market resources at ACEC, who was involved in the planning of the project. The new space offers a fresh canvas on which the organization can make its mark post-pandemic.
ACEC worked with HKS, a member firm, to create an office design that reflects the organization’s mission. “When it came to the design, it was important that ACEC’s members knew that the organization was walking the walk and talking the talk,†says Ferrance.
And the talk was all about reaching WELL certification and accommodating the new normal of a hybrid schedule for the organization’s 48 employees. WELL certification concerns itself with how a building performs for its inhabitants and their health, as opposed to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification, which rates the physical building on factors such as energy efficiency and indoor environmental quality.
With current “requirements to fulfill green building codes, the newly renovated building pretty much follows LEED, so we decided to go for WELL Gold certification and focus on occupants’ health,†says Indy Lamba, senior interior designer at HKS. “We wanted to show that mechanical, electrical, and plumbing and architecture together can create really healthy building spaces.â€
Part of the design process was a discussion about how the office would be used. “Our office design team led the process, but they collaborated with staff and asked what our needs were,†says Karen George, ACEC’s director of human resources.
Although discussions began pre-pandemic, ACEC didn’t sign a lease until 2021. “Prior to the pandemic, we had a culture of being in the office five days a week; we didn’t have a hybrid model,†says McLaughlin. “Then we all went virtual in March 2020, and doing our visioning session 16 months later was a moment of change. We had come around to acknowledging that we could work remotely and needed a hybrid model going forward.â€
That change drove the design of ACEC’s new office.
Gone are the siloed offices and dark hallways. In the new space, nine private executive offices are grouped together on one wall, with the other three walls hosting open office spaces and backed by windows to allow natural light to flood the interior space. Restrooms, the elevator bank, storage space, mechanicals, and a production studio are grouped in the center of the office, flanked on two sides by a total of nine flexible workspaces that can be used as videoconferencing rooms or for quiet work. There are one large and three small conference rooms, and two areas designated as collaboration spaces. The reception area is a social hub with varied seating—café style, lounge, and bar-height chairs—as well as a nearby pantry and a living wall, which helps with air filtration. The company now uses the Robin app to help manage desk use.
In a nod to ACEC’s members, HKS allowed “engineering to shine in the space,†Lamba says, “by letting the existing concrete live in its natural form and showing ductwork.â€
“It’s totally different from what we had before,†says ACEC Operations Director Mark Moulton, noting the natural light and open space. He appreciates the height-adjustable desks, ergonomic chairs, double screens at each workstation, and adjustable monitors.
To fulfill WELL certification requirements, HKS included air humidifiers and air-filtering devices. There’s filtered water available within 25 feet of everyone’s desk and at the café; 80 percent of the space has to be next to natural light. There are plants throughout.
“We also focused on controlling lighting, acoustics, and temperature,†Lamba says. “We wanted zones to be comfortable for everyone. Each group of occupants has access to light-dimming controls, and we installed white noise so that all the rooms meet acoustical comfortability, whether people are in an office, open environment, or conference room.â€
Materials are also a huge component of WELL standards. HKS had to look at product life cycle analyses, and “everything had to have a product health declaration,†Lamba explains. “We talked about the glue used to adhere the carpet to the floor. There are 12 points to achieve in the materials category, and we went for eight of them.â€
He adds that the building itself is Fitwel certified, a healthy building certification created by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. General Services Administration. ACEC employees have access to the building’s amenities, which include a gym with locker rooms, studios for yoga, a lactation room, and relaxation spaces. There’s also easy access to an outdoor terrace.
“The new office is a breath of fresh air. It has an open environment with natural lighting and allows for collaboration,†George says.
