Where have all the ‘offices’ gone?

Reviewing the latest designs launched this month at Clerkenwell Design Week, there one key player that seemed to be missing. Where have all the desks and task chairs gone? Through all of the show rooms, our office staples seemed to have taken a back seat.

Is this it? Is this the final year that our desks will stay with us?

In short, probably not. We are far to set in our ways to give up on our ‘personal’ office space that easily. I do however have a feeling that the designers and psychologists of the world will keep knocking on our desks, reminding us to move, stand up or collaborate until the humble office desks finally disappears in the next decade.

This is not doom and gloom though.

Before you put on your funeral black tie, we should remember that the more our learning and working spaces, adapt around us, the more productive we will become. The way we work is changing, it is becoming more fluid and organic, and dare I say it, natural.

Our work is now working around us and our lifestyles.

We have goals and dreams that need fulfilling, outside of our jobs. When an interviewer asks us where we see ourselves in five years, we are no longer required to answer with the textbook, ‘I would like to become a manager.’ We want to learn, and we have now been allowed to. We want to learn world and company culture, new skills and to keep moving.

Onward and upward.

So yes, the traditional image of an ‘office’ is dying, but prepare yourself to make way for a vastly improved dynamic environment that is based around you.