Following on from Edge Director, Michael Fern’s, participation at the Bisnow Digital Summit, we take a look back through the event.

Here is our take-out:

We’re in our 9th month of working from home, and with the way that work is changing becoming a national conversation - what are the views from the developer, landlord, tenant and designer about the future of the office?

Demand for quality and sustainability

Simon Carter, CEO of British Land, started the webinar, saying that as time goes on, we’ve moved away from working from home and the anecdotal evidence is that offices are alive and well. While initially working from home was more effective and has worked for task based activities, being back in the office is more productive for strategic thinking and problem solving. The office also brings the benefits of developing culture, collaboration and training – all valuable aspects of the office that we’ve read so much about recently – as well as enabling interaction with customers. Although there will be an overall reduction in the aggregate amount of space, there will be an increased demand for the best space. The winners will have the right infrastructure and at the same time net zero requirements have accelerated and sustainability is on the list of prerequisites for tenants and occupiers.

Highlights from Michael’s talk:
Optimising the physical and emotional experience of space at work

Connectivity (including public transport), comfort (with acoustic being one of the important elements) and choice are the fundamentals, said Chris Early, Estates and Development Manager at Telefonica.

Michael Fern, Director at Edge, expanded on these points, stating that the built environment has to shift its purpose and that the office has to be better than home. Beyond meeting a Maslow style of needs, as a designer he asks his clients to consider all places of work, to look at the big questions around how to equip the workplace to make it a more flexible and adaptable space; and then works with them to establish a blended solution. Happiness is a valuable metric to use in this process because it has been shown how this links to productivity.

The discussion turned to whether there are low-cost and easy to implement tech and design solutions that can be used in older buildings to improve productivity or is it only possible to make a measurable difference in designing a new building? Michael said that there are easy wins and many softer measures to put in place in existing buildings to make staff healthier and happier. Certainly light and air are essential to a quality environment and can be costly and difficult, but in his view, the softer elements of movement, nourishments, water, community and mind that help maintain the sense of belonging and community can often outweigh the physical space.

In terms of what tech is genuinely useful, he spoke about the integration of more video conferencing technology as the boundaries blur between those working in the office and remotely, and also about technology that enabled occupiers to programme their space. It is this ability to get the best out of the space – being able to measure the usefulness of space and to adapt the requirements to suit a rapid change of external or internal factors– is such a fundamental issue. He’s seen companies with high desk ratios struggling as a result of COVID, and predicts that we may see a return to larger spaces with a reversal of the intensification that has dominated the workplace for the last few years. The workplace needs to be better than home: there has to be positive pull. The overall thinking has to be around organisational nimbleness and about more than the process of work.

Head office, hub and spoke or another model?

The head office is not going anywhere, Nicole Valmar, Vice President, Cain International, asserted, and other panellists agreed. Nick Searl, Managing Partner, Argent, spoke about how even though there is greater diversification of workplaces, the central office is still going to exist. The question is how this head office will be used in future. Richard Morris, CEO, IWG UK, said that he was seeing clients moving to more flexible styles of workplace arrangements and a big increase in demand for high quality workspace in the suburbs as the current form of working from home wasn’t sustainable. Ekene Ezulike, Managing Director, Morgan Stanley, said that he’s seen with their global teams working longer hours than before, they need a mix of office and home. In his view big corporations want flexibility in lease arrangements, reconfigurable space and centres for collaboration.

Building wellness: reassurance, attraction and retention

COVID has highlighted the importance of considering the connection of buildings and our health more than ever. If we look past the transient issues of getting back into the office safely, there are the more enduring questions of what is the office for on our health and wellbeing. Anne Marie Aguilar, Senior Vice President, EMEA of the IWBI, asserted that that working in a building that promotes health and wellbeing will be a non-negotiable for the occupants. Workers will want reassurance that a building is safe and specifically they want more transparency and accountability around the monitoring of elements that have an impact on health such as indoor air quality.

And how do health and wellbeing relate to happiness? The consensus was that wellness can have a significant and direct impact on being in this positive state. Anne Marie Aguilar said that if you want to retain an employee or a tenant, you want to keep them happy and for people to be assured that a building has in place the systems and management to ensure that it can help them stay well. In terms of what that means with good architecture, she spoke about an emphasis on community and about the benefit of more nature inspired design solutions. Basil Demeroutis, Managing Partner, FORES Partnership, spoke about making the office more like home – a point that Michael had made about trends in design.

2021 will be the year of reunion

The watchword will be flexibility – in design, model and technology. And ultimately, as we have seen the rise of a more remote and agile workforce, there will be a greater appreciation in reinforcing the human connection and experience in the workplace. And who will be responsible for delivering on these expectations in future? There will be more of a partnership approach across the developers, asset managers, landlords, designers and tenants.