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The future of office design was the topic for discussion at this event hosted by Jennifer Celesia of Haworth during CDW.

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Words by David Tarpey

Chaired by Jennifer Celesia, Haworth's director of corporate marketing and communications-Europe, she posed to the seminar's panel the questions: What exactly is interrupting our working practices; how important is the emergence of a new social environment that brings a new approach to the meaning of work, and how do we relate to it?

Oliver Marlow from Studio TILT said he felt we are in the middle of a 'perfect storm' that is witnessing the growing influence as decision makers of Generation Y, the shift in economic power from West to East, the uncertainties in the wake of the 2008 crash and the emergence of new business models. He also questioned the popular idea that new technologies had given designers a new lease of life.

Alice Fung is a qualified architect and one of the co-founders and directors of 00 with expertise across urban design and regeneration, development strategy and start-up enterprise. She specialises in co-working workspaces and institutions, micro SME sector development and social/impact investment projects. She founded Impact Hub Westminster, a membership-based co-working space for micro SMEs.

From the Royal College of Art, Professor Jeremy Myerson agreed with the perfect storm analogy. He said: 'We had 1,000 years of work before the industrial era moved us from the home to artificial containers (factories, offices et cetera) and a complete separation of the spheres. The interruption now is as profound and as severe but it is reuniting the spheres and asking questions. This is an interruption to the traditional relationship between the individual and the organisation. The digital age has given much more independence and autonomy to the individual. And that is one of the most interesting aspects of "work, interrupted".'

Alice Fung thought that this shift is creating much more fluidity in how work is even perceived. She said: 'Work is no longer being seen as just work, so we can now openly identify our individual passions and missions. We no longer have to work within the hierarchies of previous times. You see it happening in social media where interactions might be a mix of social/social, work/social or work/work.

Professor Jeremy Myerson is co-founder and director of the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design at London's Royal College of Art where he is a research professor and the first-ever holder of the Helen Hamlyn Chair of Design. An author, academic and activist in design and innovation, he has written widely on workplace design.

Celesia asked the panel for their thoughts on the concept of co-working/coworking as it develops beyond its first 10 years to 2.0 stage. She noted that it has evolved as a concept (often associated with tech start-ups) that is being embraced by some larger corporations and on campuses.

Marlow stressed that without the hyphen, the word sums up the essence of it being a new, malleable concept. He said: 'It's a new word and represents a necessary, adjustable redefining of a working relationship. What you now have is an explosion of co-working globally, even in less industrial regions such as Africa that have leapfrogged and are evolving in their own spheres with their own identities.

'As for corporations, they will do whatever they have to do to remain profitable, but one of their challenges is to attract new talent from the new generation as we lose management from the post-war generation and those in their 30s/ 40s move forward. But you have a whole new generation coming through that do not and will not accept a traditional working environment.'

Myerson said he thought that co-working (he prefers to keep the hyphen) has evolved as a reaction to a failure of contemporary office design to keep up with user aspiration and changing business practice. He said: 'But what's interesting is that the corporates are big users of co-working and are giving their premium knowledge workers membership to co-working spaces. I think they're doing that because the traditional office environment isn't working for people. And this despite a lot of design investment and design talent. But there is something inherently wrong with the industrial hierarchical model of the workplace, however congenial and comfortable we make it. And the move to break down walls and make them more neighbourly has resulted in big problems around noise and distraction. But once corporations moved away from Taylorism they didn't have a cultural script, and so a lot of people work in offices that I'd describe as de-cultured, de-natured environments. I think the rise of co-working is a reaction against what's wrong in the traditional office.'

Oliver Marlow is a multiplatform designer, co-founder and creative director at Studio TILT. As a leading expert on the design of collaborative spaces and the relationship between space and creativity, he regularly leads workshops all over the world. He is co-author of Codesigning Space (Artifice Books), which he wrote with TILT colleague Dermot Egan.

Fung said she thought there is both the image of co-working and then the reality. She mentioned that at one end of the spectrum is the big open space that she described as 'Googleesque' that might sport slides and such like but, on the other side, there is the aspect where some employees might be able to devote 20 per cent of their time to personal projects. She said: 'As designers, we've been trying to react to this rejection of traditional hierarchical structures by manipulating around the edges to take down metaphorical walls put up by governments but also to help unleash individual potential. There are still many in our community of architects and designers who don't understand that design that meets the needs of the user isn't just done on a piece of paper or by putting in funnyshaped tables. And it's definitely not about treating people as chickens in a free-range space until it has been properly quantified to see if, for instance, it helps improve innovation or addresses health issues such as depression within the workforce. Designers need also to understand the role of government in the same way we inherently understand social media.'

Citing her involvement with Impact Hubs both in London and through their global connectivity those around the world, Fung said that the ethos behind such hubs values the idea that working together is so much better than working alone. But she stressed that the design ideas behind such hubs look at the communities that use them to try to understand the needs of those using the spaces. 'It's about understanding how people are engaged, and definitely not just asking whether someone prefers this shade of grey to that one. It's about establishing how the individual works as a whole person,' she said.

Marlow highlighted how the relationship between centralisation and decentralisation had changed and assumed that some corporations wish to be part of a decentralised trend to attract new, young talent and to be seen to be part of a new trend. 'Co-working is a systemic response to changing trends and models. But it also has to be about much more than just putting in a few colourful chairs and pretty tables,' he said.

Fung reinforced that point by stressing that co-working isn't just about creating an open plan environment. She said: 'If people are working on different projects they will need certain touch-points or opportunities to come together with their peers. This might even be something like regular afternoon tea and scones at which everyone could gather.'

Imogen Privett noted that any design ideas around shared office space should be evidence based rather than relying on anecdotal proof, and this point was supported by Fung, who argued for greater amounts of data to support investment decisions rather than simply being guided by intuition.

Marlow suggested that it is very tricky to work data evidence into a project that has already been designed. 'To do this, the culture and eco-system of a company must be addressed and the business flexible enough to absorb change when evidence emerges. But a company might ask, what will co-working look like at our 4,000 locations?' he said.

Imogen Privett is an architecture designer and researcher. Having graduated with a Masters in architecture from the Royal College of Art in 2011, she joined the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design as a research associate in its Work & City Research Lab. She has also worked with leading architecture practices Pringle Brandon, Perkins + Will and Surface to Air.

From the floor, founder of training and business consultancy hip.academy in north London Daniela Bartos asked why the design industry does not liaise more during any research/data gathering phase, with a wider range of experts such as sociologists and academics. Myerson suggested that a big challenge for architects was for them to learn to work more closely with social scientists and to examine workplace behaviour. Privett stressed the need for research to become much more qualitative rather than just being quantitative. She also felt that the workplace had to be looked at in its function as an experience and how it meets its users' psychological needs.

Fung thought that larger corporations will only change gradually in their thinking about co-working and designed spaces, and that it will be a slow process as they watch other smaller firms and individuals blaze the trail. 'It won't be just one thing that creates the change, but as more and more start-ups react against the traditional structure and as concepts such as the pop-up become familiar in the mainstream. I'd encourage architects and surveyors to talk to accountants and middle management. Ultimately, it's important to know how one measures a space to see how many people are interacting or exchanging pieces of information.'

Myerson agreed that most office designs are based on assumptions about what is a good idea. He cited the BBC comedy W1A as its spoofs an 'inspiration space' that features eight hay bales and a life-sized sheep in the middle of a busy office environment. He said: 'Most office designs are based on assumptions, but what you decide on then begs the question as to what sort of behaviour will you actually encourage. That's why ethnographic surveys are key.'