This building, designed by
UN Studio, has received a Gold Certification from the German Sustainable Building Council. The building is essentially an office building but it aims to expand “contemporary understandings of new working environments and affect a design approach that creates working environments which stimulate communication, experimentation and creativity...”
We are also told: “The traditional office grid and the separation of work spaces is replaced by the incorporation of extensive visual connections, spaces for incidental and planned meetings and flexible office 'laboratories' with shared work stations.“
In fairly large cities, such as New York, London and Hong Kong, where office space is at a premium, working environments that in spirit sound very much like this, albeit it housed within less salubrious architecture, have been around for going on a decade in various forms.
Hot desking, desk rental, clusters, huddles, office circles and hubs are all widely used especially in the creative industries and amongst the tech start-ups. Although the permutations of creative working environments have been well explored, I do not think comprehensively so. Evolving technologies such as the iPad, are suggesting further possibilities, and there is more to come. It will be interesting to see if anything beyond the “huddle” comes out of this building.
