Offices after coronavirus should be designed for meetings and socialising while focused work should take place at home, says Perkins and Will interior designer Meena Krenek, who has developed proposals to rethink the purpose of the workplace.
Krenek, who is interior design director of the architecture firm's Los Angeles office, led a team to create the conceptual Meeting Space project in response to the coronavirus pandemic, which she said has seen many companies enjoy the advantages of working from home.
"Does the traditional one-workstation-per-person ratio still make sense?"
"Our collective work-from-home experience has been a forced experiment for all of us, giving us insight into what we need to work most effectively," Krenek told Dezeen.
"In a future de-densified, post-Covid-19 world, does the traditional one-workstation-per-person ratio still make sense?"
"Perhaps the office relinquishes its function as a provider of private workstations and instead leans into its role of a 'meeting space' – that is, one designed to support collaboration and connection," she added.
Krenek believes post-pandemic offices should be spaces that give employees the opportunity to meet up in conjunction with home offices. Instead of individual desks and private offices, the schemes in her project focus on providing spaces for these meetings and large gatherings.
"Hybrid model of post-Covid-19 office encourages fluid work environment"
"A balance of physical and virtual work experiences will become the norm for many organisations," Krenek told Dezeen. "A fluid work experience allows employees to make the decision whether to work from home or to meet and connect with coworkers in a physical office meeting room."
There are three schematic diagrams in the project, Pop-Up Meeting Space, Fluid Work Experience and Small Group Teaming. Areas are designed with details like privacy curtains that can open and close off certain zone, furniture on wheels and screens for Zoom calls so they can be easily adapted to different uses.