FRAME’s editor-at-large Tracey Ingram explores the role of the future office with Robert Thiemann, cofounder and former director of FRAME and founder of spatial design consultancy Betterness.

Drawing on insights from Wherever Whenever – an IBA-affiliated work culture festival held at Orgatec 2024, for which Thiemann developed the English-language programme – their conversation underscores the importance of integrating diverse work settings, prioritizing flexibility and wellbeing, and striking a balance between community and individuality. But is shaping this future solely the responsibility of designers?

From efficiency to assembly

Tracey: Over the past year, you’ve done extensive research into the future of the workplace, meeting lots of people, listening to talks and joining panels. What’s your take on how the role of the office will change in the coming years?

Robert: Currently, efficiency rules. But I don’t think that will be the future office’s main role. My conclusion is that it will be primarily a place for people to meet. Because people can work and be efficient from anywhere, but they want to meet each other – that’s the main reason to come to the office. I see the future office as more of a clubhouse, supporting internal goals and values and fostering a sense of togetherness. And secondly, it’s a place to get work done.

Fostering connections

Robert: I spoke to a psychologist who was firmly against remote working. She argued that people, especially younger people, need to work around others to feel well and stay socially connected. This need could also be met by co-working spaces, which often promise community through events and shared spaces. But as we both know from experience, simply being in a co-working space doesn’t guarantee you’ll meet people. You have to make an effort to connect and start conversations, which can be tough for people who are shy or reserved.

Cover and above: Vigo Jansons

Robert Thiemann sees Edelman’s Francis House in London by Gensler as a standout example of a modern workspace, appreciating its biophilic design, the reuse of existing spaces and furniture, and the inclusion of local references that foster a sense of belonging.

Tracey: The bigger question is: what brings people together? Often, it’s not just sharing a space, but sharing an experience – a concert, for example. The challenge with co-working is that everyone is experiencing different things: different stress levels, deadlines, pressures. This often creates individual bubbles around them – literally, with headphones and other signals that say ‘don’t talk to me’. So you can’t just expect connection to happen on its own. There’s also a lot of tension in co-working spaces because of these different needs. Some people want to have a conversation and have nowhere to go, so they talk loudly in an area where others just want to concentrate. Not having enough quiet areas or meeting rooms can cause friction.

Designing around values, not forms

Tracey: People ultimately want autonomy. Rather than forcing people back to the office, some companies recognize that employees are happier when they can choose. And if you have a workspace that truly meets your needs, it’s much nicer to work in a dedicated environment – perhaps not all the time, but at least some of the time.

Robert: What are the conditions for a space to function as a truly great workspace? This leads us to interior design. Whether it’s the colourful branded office or the neutral, make-it-your-own office, there’s still so much focus on form. What if we stopped designing around forms and started designing around values? Any space, especially a workplace, should reflect the values of the organization it belongs to. If a company has a clear policy on inclusivity, transparency or other human-centric values, how can you express that in a space? Better still, how can you do this without thinking only in terms of CMF: colour, material and finish? How can you express these values in the way people use the space, in the separation of areas, in the zoning and functions within the space? I think that should be the starting point.

Expanding co-creation

Robert: If you’re aiming for a human-centric design, why don’t designers – and employers – bring in a wider spectrum of collaborators, such as psychologists and sociologists? And when the space opens, involve an event manager or a community manager. For so long, we’ve expected too much from interior designers and architects alone. What if, during the design phase, we involved not only the employees but also those who deeply understand human nature? Maybe then we’d create a space that’s not just about colour, material, finish and shape, but also about the softer, human-centric values.

Tracey: We’ve talked a lot in recent years about co-creation – designing with the end users of a space – but, you’re right, I think it’s time to extend the ‘co’ to include experts in human behaviour. Also, staff turnover can be quite high, so co-creating with the staff means designing for the people who are there now, but you want the design to outlast them. Rather than just focusing on the current workforce, why not consider the broader spectrum of human needs? These needs don’t necessarily change much from one group to another. You could say that a certain company attracts a certain type of person, but even within that, there’s a variety of needs – especially with the growing awareness of neurodiversity.

Designing for uncertainty 

Robert:  There’s so much we can’t predict, so we have to design for an uncertain future. Spaces need to be adaptable, able to change when necessary. There’s no shortage of short-term solutions, but the question is: do people use them? Many people say no – often because they don’t know they exist. They don’t know they can adjust a desk from sitting to standing height, for example, or they don’t know how to do it, or they simply can’t be bothered. The same goes for spatial configurations. For whatever reason – maybe because people tend to just accept things as they are – a lot of these short-term options aren’t used.

Photos: Stan Koolen

Architect Remi Versteeg, cofounder of Beyond Space, believes that workspaces should be for work, not play. Beyond Space’s portfolio reflects this idea through projects such as the newly relaunched Boring Collection of distraction-free furniture.   

Tracey: That’s where having different options within one space comes in, which is also related to wellbeing. You mentioned sit-stand desks. A recent Australian study that says that standing desks are actually not that healthy, and that they can increase the risk of certain circulatory problems like varicose veins. After years of saying ‘sitting is the new smoking’, it turns out that it’s not necessarily sitting that's the problem; it’s being sedentary. So the healthiest thing to do is to change your posture frequently, to move around a lot. A sit-stand desk can be part of this, if it’s easy to adjust, but it’s not about sitting one week and standing the next. Ideally, an office would have different ways of encouraging movement and postural changes throughout the day. It would have access to the outdoors, allowing for walking meetings or breaks. Obviously, company policies have to accommodate this too.

The role of AI

Tracey: Regardless of a space’s design, people will still have personal preferences. In her talk during the festival, UX expert Sophie Kleber mentioned the role of AI in personalizing spaces for comfort and wellbeing. Things like temperature can only be customized to a certain extent – unless everyone has their own private space, you can’t control the temperature individually. Instead, AI could cluster people with similar preferences together and direct them to appropriate areas of the building. Or, there could be ways to more radically customize individual workspaces, such as visual or sensory adjustments that respond to the user’s stress levels and help to calm their nervous system through imagery. How do you feel about this potential use of AI?

Photo: Courtesy of Michelle Kaufman, director of R&D for the Built Environment at Google

At Google’s Lab for the Built Environment, the team experiments with turning the office inside out: desks are encapsulated and the open spaces in between are designed for group collaboration.

Photo: Courtesy of Bs;Bp and Studio Sutton

Bs;Bp’s Maarten Jamin, chief design officer for flexible office provider IWG, believes that the future of co-working lies in expanding amenities to include things like co-living spaces, childcare and even hair salons.

Robert: I think there’s still a long way to go. Take Spotify, for example. It uses AI to introduce me to new music, but it’s not really new – it’s just more of what I already know. Before you know it, you’re stuck in a cycle of soundalikes, which gets really nauseating. I can imagine something similar happening if you put someone in a space that constantly reflects the same mood based on their preferences. But I do see a role for AI before, during and after the design process. AI could help architects and designers better plan and optimize spaces by quickly generating hundreds or even thousands of layout options, allowing them to choose the best one based on certain preferences. Once the office is completed, AI could also be used to assess how well the space is working by analysing data collected from sensors. For example, if a meeting room is rarely used, perhaps it could be repurposed, or if certain desks are always occupied, perhaps more desks could be added in that area. But I don’t think we should rely on AI alone. It should always be supplemented with qualitative feedback from the people who actually use the space.

Read their full conversation in the upcoming issue of FRAME Magazine, Issue 160, out next month