Working from home is an increasingly common 21st century company perk. It means greater flexibility for employees, particularly when it comes to work-life balance, and it’s become a hallmark of progressive company culture. But while it might sound like working in your pajamas is a dream come true, it can also be a challenge if you live in a tiny apartment. What’s a remote worker without an office to do?
[Photo: courtesy Thames & Hudson]
That’s the subject of the book HomeWork, which will be published in early April. Written and curated by cofounder and editor- in-chief of Monitor magazine Anna Yudina, the compendium contains a host of projects that reveal how workers transform their tiny urban apartments from the place they sleep into the place they work.
“People have very different situations to which they have to adapt their workplace,” Yudina says. “Sometimes you need to balance it with kids at home, sometimes you have a tiny space where you still have to find a way to organize for different times of the day and situations. It’s finding the right scenario in the right space and time, through design.”
Some of the designs in the book highlight what Yudina calls “time-based” solutions, where people use movable walls and furniture to entirely transform their space between leisure time and work time. Take a design by the New York-based architect Michael K. Chen. Chen uses a single movable wall to transform 390 square feet from a living room and workspace into a bedroom. It’s a way to keep your work separate from the rest of your life. Similarly, a studio flat designed by Spheron Architects in London hides a kitchen and bed in two movable wooden blocks at opposite ends of the room, allowing the artist who lives there to have a completely bare space to work and meditate. “The person wanted to create a very zen, convent-like atmosphere for him to concentrate and be one-on-one with his work,” Yudina says.