London 2.0: Architects predict the green offices of the future
Outdoor meetings, indoor gardens and circadian lighting that adapts to your body’s natural rhythm – how could working life change in an eco-friendly future?
Now as we tentatively step back into the office – and embrace a new era of hybrid working – it’s time to think about how professional life could evolve to enhance our well-being and become more planet-friendly.
“The social impact of Covid-19 has put a rocket under the idea of sustainable architecture,” says James Taylor, London studio chair of Woods Bagot, a global architecture practice.
From cutting carbon and reusing materials to creating collaborative communities with fresh air, innovative lighting and great acoustics – we asked some of London’s top architects to describe their visions of our working future.
1) Offices could double up as drone port parking
“Office buildings have typically existed as hermetically-sealed boxes. We’re moving away from that,” says Craig Robertson, Head of Sustainability at Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, an architecture firm based in Clerkenwell.
Creating multi-functional spaces that can adapt through time is at the top of the architectural agenda, as it extends the life-span of a building. By adapting to different uses and trends over time, the need to construct a new build and burn lots of carbon in the process is vastly diminished.
“We can’t predict the future, so incorporating features like increased floor to ceiling height not only allows for better daylight penetration but gives us much greater flexibility for functions that we don’t know about yet,” he says.
For James Taylor, the use of timber is the key to unlocking this flexible approach to workspaces.
“I think timber is the future. We’re doing some work with the idea of a timber chassis that could evolve from office use to drone port space, or some other future use we don’t yet know about,” he says.
2) A rise in the art of retrofitting
Retrofitting refers to using older systems in novel ways – in architecture, this can mean reusing components from older buildings.
“We’re acutely aware of the impact of waste in projects,” says Matthew Driscoll, founder and director of the Threefold architectural firm.
One of Threefold’s clients, Airbnb, recently decommissioned a working space.
3) Creating celebratory, collaborative communities
Buildings are constructed to best suit the needs of the people in them. For all three architects, people are at the core of a sustainable working future.
Modern technology means that there’s no need to be tethered to a particular desk - our laptops offer us the chance to be mobile. Architects are designing work environments that naturally lead to greater interaction between colleagues and break free of the shackles of fixed desks in traditional offices.
One way in which spontaneous meetings or collaborations can happen is through introducing wider staircases running up the middle of a building, says Craig Robertson. The use of landings as offshoots into different departments boosts opportunities to bump into people and generate ideas.
“Through architecture we’re trying to create positive friction in the workplace population,” he says.
“Invisible factors” such as acoustics also contribute to better communication in the workplace.
“Everyone has become aware of how bad acoustics affect the quality of the call that you’re on. It really contributes to the atmosphere of a space,” says Matthew Driscoll.
