Radical Office Design [Hardcover]

Jeremy Myerson (Author), Philip Ross (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2006

Traditional office work, characterized by repetitive clerical tasks, is rapidly giving way to "knowledge work," characterized by the creative application and exchange of information. In response, architects around the world are leaving aside the old cubicle grid to design imaginative, high-tech offices that foster knowledge work and, at the same time, help workers balance the competing demands of colleagues, customers, and family. The forty-three exceptional workplaces profiled in this timely volume have all been completed within the last six years and serve a wide variety of organizations, both private and public, small and large. Examples range from the headquarters of an advertising firm where one enormous table seats all two hundred employees, facilitating communication, to a BMW plant where the factory production line runs through and above the administrative offices, unifying the corporate community.

The authors skillfully distinguish the primary trends in contemporary office design by dividing their engagingly written case studies among four chapters, each dedicated to a particular type of workplace. "Academies" encourage the sharing of knowledge within a corporate structure; "Guilds" allow the members of a profession to interact as peers; "Agoras" bring the workplace closer to the marketplace and to civic life; and "Lodges" combine the home and the office. Two hundred extraordinary color photographs and fifty architectural drawings show how the featured architects have configured public areas, meeting rooms, and private work spaces to meet the needs of today’s increasingly versatile and mobile workers. The inclusion of an informative introduction, which outlines the economic and technological factors driving the rapid evolution of contemporary workplace architecture, further ensures that this attractive book will be an essential reference for everybody who has a hand in designing offices, and a thought-provoking read for everybody who works in one.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jeremy Myerson is a professor of design studies and the director of InnovationRCA at the Royal College of Art, London. He is a former editor of Design Week and World Architecture. Philip Ross is a commentator, writer, and consultant on technology in the workplace. His previous publications include The Cordless Office and, with Jeremy Myerson, The Creative Office and The 21st Century Office.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Abbeville Press; 1 edition (September 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0789208865
• ISBN-13: 978-0789208866
• Product Dimensions: 11.6 x 9.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #499,108 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars What I needed it for..., January 12, 2009

By 

A. Surber (My home town, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Radical Office Design (Hardcover)

I work at an architectural firm and we're currently redesigning our entire office, this book was useful in the design development and the schematic phases of our design.

5.0 out of 5 stars Radical is Right, It can also be Inexpensive, October 24, 2006

By 

John Matlock "Gunny" (Winnemucca, NV) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Radical Office Design (Hardcover)

Having spent most of my working career in the computer business, I spent most of my working career in offices where the main concentration of effort was dull, dull, dull. One mindless cubicle after another.

I picked up this book for the first time when it was lying upside down. The back cover shows an office structure in Los Angeles where the cubicles were truly cubicles - well, actually they were rectangulers. They were made of a stack of shipping containers, 8 foot square, by however long. These things are cheap, strong and available everywhere. I've often thought they should be used for buildings. And inside the book you'll find a description of the building that uses them, providing finished offices at a cost of about $40 a foot.

While this building was in Los Angeles, the book features offices from around the world. This is good, because I've often felt that much of the rest of the world was ahead of us in design efforts.

This is a splendid book that I'd recommend to anyone thinking about building new offices. It is a clear presentation of what can be done, and how advanced design does not have to be expensive.