Your office matters
In the 1960s, the Herman Miller furniture company created a design tool that revolutionized corporate aesthetics for decades to come. You guessed it — the standard cubicle.
The cubicle was more than just four grey walls. It came to represent shrewd management economics (squeezing as many employees as possible into a workspace) and a general ambivalence about creating places where staff enjoy coming to work.
Considering the long hours that many people clock at the office, you’d think we’d put more effort into creating aesthetically pleasing workspaces.
But that hasn’t been the case — until recently.
The rise of modern workplace design
Tour the corporate headquarters of modern companies like Instagram and Bumble, and it’s clear that times are changing. Once the cubicle walls came down, the impersonal office opened up to a whole new world of creative design.
As I recently wrote in “Why open office design makes you less productive”, office design also reflects a company’s values.
Walk into a modern office with a coffee lounge in the reception area, and a mix of open space and private rooms, and instantly you get the sense of a forward-thinking company. Visit a sea of cubicles where the higher-ups are camped out in swanky corner offices…
