The office of the future – cubicles are out. Bars, neighbourhoods and sensors are in
The office used to be a place people went because they had to.
Meetings happened in conference rooms and in person.
Desks took up the bulk of the space.
The kingdom of Dilbert and of David Brent is now under threat.
The pandemic has exposed the office to competition from remote working, and brought up a host of questions about how it should be designed in the future.
If you are an optimist, the office of the future will be a spacious, collaborative environment that makes the commute worth it. If you are a pessimist, it will be a building full of heavily surveilled drunkards. In reality, pragmatic considerations—how much time is left on the lease, the physical constraints of a building’s layout, uncertainty about the path of the pandemic—will determine the pace of change. Whatever happens, the office won’t be what it was.
The Economist explores what the future of the office looks like in this article.
