Offices & Workspaces: Portfolios of 43 Designers [Paperback]

Vernon Mays (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2001

Work Spaces and Work Places: Office Designs that Work captures some of the best examples of the emerging 21st century workspace design. The spaces shown herein are marvelously well made: utilitarian yet beautiful, flexible yet elegant, above all functional; serving their users in the most efficient possible way. Featured office designs range from the traditional to the cutting edge - law, banking, multimedia and biotechnology.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Justin Henderson is a freelance writer specializing in architecture, interior design, and travel writing. He served as a senior and contributing editor to Interiors magazine for ten years, and has contributed articles to numerous design and general interest publications, including Metropolitan Home, the New York Times magazine, the Village Voice, Architecture, Interior Design, and Metropolis.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction: Then and Now

Vernon Mays

Working on this book has forever changed the way I see[sic] offices and work spaces. So it was with renewed vision that I recently took a personal tour of one of the modern era’s prototypical suburban office buildings—the Reynolds Metals Headquarters in Richmond, Virginia. Designed in the mid-1950s by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmare, Owings & Merrill, the aluminum company’s elegant corporate offices have survived as a kind of time capsule—a tangible product of the corporate optimism that thrived in the post-WorldWar II era. Its classically proportioned exterior, stately reflecting pool, and intelligent courtyard plan were all conceived to project an image of financial success, stability, and unparalleled accomplishment.

Aluminum, at the time, was a relative newcomer on the construction scene, having emerged as a versatile component of the war effort. Eager to demonstrate the material’s potential applications, the company pressed Bunshaft to incorporate it wherever possible into the new building. He responded by using more than one million pounds (454,000kilograms) of aluminum, mostly in the exterior cladding, but also in the custom furnishings, cellular ceiling panels, filing cabinets, and escalator enclosures. Even the carpets were woven with aluminum fibers. Having seen all this first-hand, I was impressed by the logic and beauty of this icon of twentieth-century design and its masterfully executed interiors. But, at the same time, it struck me how the building constitutes the perfect foil against which the design of today’s offices can be contrasted.

Stylistically the two are different, that’s a given. But a more fundamental contrast, to my mind, is one of mentality. Although the Reynolds offices have long since been updated to accommodate new styles of working, documentary photographs of the original offices convey an attitude about business that today seems almost quaint. Bunshaft and his colleagues knew what an office was meant to be. They designed with that function in mind—and that function alone. That’s how the 1950s were, of course: a male-dominated society in which the guys were executives and the gals were secretaries. It was orderly, controlled, predictable.

Would anyone dare say the same about business today? Technology advances at blinding speed. Yesterday’s competitors are today’s strategic partners. Wave after wave of corporate layoffs spell uncertainty, not security. How does one design for such realities? Culling through the sea of photographs submitted for use in this book, I discovered many firms that address the question by designing not for constancy, but for change. Somehow they find ways to accommodate today’s organizational makeup without building roadblocks to tomorrow’s. It’s a symptom of the times. Rooms become freestanding boxes that don’t disturb the building shell; walls pose as partitions that can be cheaply dismantled and discarded; ceilings are nonexistent, save for the view of overhead mechanical and lighting systems afforded by their absence; and workstations adhere to the concept of flexibility so literally that some are even equipped with wheels.

For me, the separation between today’s offices and those of Bunshaft’s time is embodied by the accompanying photograph ofVitale, Caturano and Company, a New England accounting firm that occupies offices renovated by ADD Inc of Boston. There, work is about a process, not simply a set of bureaucratic restrictions. Just look at the computer programmers, jeans and all, working comfortably in their Netsurferdivans—recumbent work chairs that elevate ergonomics to new levels. Compared to the buttoned down version of American business portrayed in the Reynolds photograph of the 1950s, this environment exudes an informality that speaks volumes about the heightened value of employees and their role in the workplace today.

With increasing frequency, businesses have forsaken ‘big and bureaucratic’ in favor of ‘lean and mean.’ That can be attributed partly to a lack of knowledge about what the future will hold six years from now, even six months from now. And while some would argue that this uncertainty offers today’s designers opportunity for innovation, I suspect, in their efforts to meet a client’s program, the burden of responsibility is heavier for them than for pioneers such as Gordon Bunshaft. Which, with my renewed sense of vision, gives me greater appreciation for what many of the world’s leading architecture and interior design firms are contributing to the field. Their accomplishments are the core of this book.

Product Details

• Paperback: 184 pages
• Publisher: Rockport Publishers (September 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1564968065
• ISBN-13: 978-1564968067
• Product Dimensions: 12 x 9.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,447,466 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not a lot of creativity, March 27, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Offices & Workspaces: Portfolios of 43 Designers (Paperback)

I have the restaurants and hotels book, a portfolio of 40 designers( which is recommend), and thought that this one would be good too. There are a few good photos in it but most are a little outdated and old. not a whole lot of creativity being shown.