Workplaces and Workspaces: Office Designs That Work - Softcover

Henderson, Justin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1564966917 ISBN 13: 9781564966919

Publisher: Rockport Pub, 2000

Synopsis

Workplaces and Workspaces: Office Designs That Work beautifully illustrates the designs of some of the world's most innovative and imaginative architects and interior designers.

-Features more than fifty high-quality office designs ranging from the traditional to the cutting edge--law, banking, multimedia, and biotechnology --Presents all the elements of design: comfortable seating and lighting, dynamic colors, materials and textures, functional space plans, and well considered programming --Shows how designers meet the challenge of enhancing corporate identity while maintaining necessary functionality --Includes some of the best work of the 1990s and points the way to the definitive office designs of the 21st century

A handsome volume showing how designers inspired by the challenges of cyberspace, new technology, and changing modes of doing business are reinventing the office.

About this title

About the Author

Justin Henderson is a Seattle-based freelance writer specializing in architecture, interior design, and travel writing. He served as a senior and contributing editor to Interiors Magazine from 1985-1995, and also has contributed articles to numerous design and general interest publications including Metropolitan Home, The New York Times Magazine, The Village Voice, the LA Weekly, Architecture, Interior Design, Seattle Magazine, and Metropolis.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Every day, millions go to work in offices located in large urban towers and low-rise suburban office parks, in renovated warehouses and remodeled factories, in buildings that squat shapelessly on the landscape or soar on the ramparts of inspired architecture. The white-collar workers of the world have done so for decades and will continue to do so for decade. to come. And yet, the rituals and rules that govern the workplace are in a state of flux (at least in those parts of the world where the structures of the emerging knowledge-based global economy - the so-called Information Age - are in place). Though much remains the same, a major change is afoot.

One of the moot significant trends of the 1990s was the flattening of hierarchies, a move intended to democratize corporate cultures across the land. And this trend can be linked to other significant changes, such as improvements in lighting.

The development of new lighting technology has been driven in part by the need for saving power, and in part by the ubiquitous presence of computer screens requiring non-glare, non-reflective illumination best supplied by custom-designed ceiling fixtures with special lenses -coupled with a good dose of daylight.

To enable that daylight to reach the office core, it becomes necessary to keep window walk free and open, downsizing or even eliminating what was formerly the most desirable real estate in almost every office - the private window wall and die corner office. Turning this prime real estate into open-plan or shared space is one of the most compelling moves toward a non-hierarchical office that can be made -- and with it comes practical, light-generating side effects.

Designs make corporate images. They inspire workers. They impress potential clients and visitors. They make businesses work better. They help shape corporate culture and influence all who come in contact with them. The design of offices is integral to the culture we live in.

Edition details

• Publisher: Rockport Pub
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1564966917
• ISBN 13: 9781564966919
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192