Page 5 - From space to place

FACTS & FIGURES
FROM SPACE TO PLACE.
Social, technological and economic pressures are changing the office reducing the space at employees’ disposal,but not every- where: new places are available, now!
FACTS AND FIGURES | 5
Space represents the forces and dynamics affecting the office world like no other meas- ure. Only this variable can show the potential and, at the same time, the contradictions that technological innovations or demographics introduce to the working world and our personalwork-life balance.
This is due to the contrast between extreme fluidity and mutability of intangible of- fice components such as the processes, the collaborative patterns and the digital tools available and the rigidity of the tangible one, i.e. the building, the physical space, the furniture, since their resistance to change makes impossible to respond to the needs workers in real time. While the processes and workforce are rapidly changing, the office as a physical space remains stable providing far less flexible structures.
These dynamics are present in every business - small or large, local or global companies - who need learn to compete in a world in which change is not only continuous, but oc- curs at different rates and often requires the ability to optimize resources and to adapt the same to unforeseeable events 1.
However, social and technological pressures are only two of the dynamics acting on the office space. Another force is equally powerful: Cost. As an operational cost, the purchase or rental of office spaces has always been a critical factor, especially in historical and socio-economical contexts of great uncertainty, such as the logic, but differ from city to city. In this scenario, many companies see the need to be repre- sented only in a specific urban context rather than an entire country with cities such as Milan, Berlin, Madrid, Birmingham and Hamburg being the first cities expected to ex- perience a major change in amount invested, rent and capital value in 2016 2, while in other cities such as London their growth rates will amount to two-digit figures in a year 3 This pressure on costs and working modalities influences the office configuration and, ultimately, the space available to employees. The most obvious change is the ratio of desks to office workers. It is deemed 1:1 in a traditional office. In our current “flexible office” model 4.
Due to the change of working modes, each person spends less than 50% of their
In a little more than five years, the employees have lost around 5 mq. of their office space, but they have gained the freedom to work anywhere
Source: BCO, Occupier Density Study, London, 2013