Friday Feels Like: The End of The Office

This week has been full of inspiring meetings and catch-ups with friends (slash people-I-work-with). I’ve walked away inspired, focused and motivated. It is so great to have wonderful people to bounce off and get excited with… we actually really need each other every now and then.

A running theme in these conversations has been of our desire to move away from the ticking-of-the-boxes working-style and rather deciding on when, how, and where we get the best out of ourselves and our practices and using that as our basis for a successful work practice.

Environments are so important. Ever walked into a beautifully curated store and think, Ah, I could just live in here… yeah, me too. I think we crave being in places that make us feel a certain way and energize our thoughts. So where does this lead us in terms of a working environment? Log cabins, tree huts, and surf bungalows spring to mind…

My friend Troy told me about an article he had read (here) which talks about the rapid decline in people not having any more need for an office space in a city, that the majority of work practice these days is being done in more enjoyable environments such as cafes, parks, and studio spaces. The days of the 80’s-style office buildings may be at the end of it’s era?

“Office work is destined to disappear,” says philosopher Thierry Paquot. “We’re already contracting out a lot of paperwork – accounting for example – to workers in countries like India and Morocco and every manager has his smartphone and does his own correspondence. The world of work is undergoing a huge transformation,” Paquot says, adding: “I think we’re moving towards a world where people will work at home or in cafes and, when they have to meet, they’ll do so not in a skyscraper but somewhere really nice.”