The office of the future

THE OFFICE used to be a place people went because they had to. Meetings happened in conference rooms and in person. Desks took up the bulk of the space. The kingdom of Dilbert and of David Brent is now under threat. The pandemic has exposed the office to competition from remote working, and brought up a host of questions about how it should be designed in the future.Start with what the office is for. In the past it was a place for employees to get their work done, whatever form that took. Now other conceptions of its role jostle for attention. Some think of the office as the new offsite. Its purpose is to get people together in person so they can do the things that remote working makes harder: forging deeper relationships or collaborating in real time on specific projects. Others talk of the office as a destination, a place that has to make the idea of getting out of bed earlier, in order to mingle with people who may have covid-19, seem attractive.