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Working at home - making it
work
'It's the separation of the house and office. I can do it
in my mind, when I'm in one and when I'm in the other. The joy is you
can move from one to the other.' WORK@home research programme, Helen Hamlyn
Research Centre, Royal College of Art
According to the Borders research study by the RCA WORK@home programme,
workers at home organise their work environment in an attempt to maximise
the gains and minimise the negative effects of working at home.
Working at home produces some strong positive synergies of resource.
For example, caring for children while working; utilising the care and
rest facilities that are in the home to accommodate illness and disability;
utilising the quiet of the home for concentrated work.
Work and home life are in very basic ways mutually exclusive and their
co-existence may effect both negatively. Work at home may drain much
resource away from the home and put new spatial or behavioural demands
on personal and family life. Normal domestic roles, and home leisure
and social functions may suffer, and need to be delayed or reduced.
Conversely, the demands and temptations of the home may interfere with
the ability to perform the work. Children or uninvited visitors, or
the proximity of the television and sofa can all impinge on and compete
with work.
There are clear benefits to working at home just as there are dangers.
So how can these benefits be maximised and the dangers avoided and what
role does design play?
Working on the move
'The 21st century belongs to the fleet of foot.. People
will think nothing of moving to Nanjing, then Nairobi, and then New York
in search of riches.' The result of taking work out of the workplace into a range of new
and different public settings - from hotel lobbies and airport terminals
to parks, public plazas, vehicles and service stations - asks new questions
of environments, products and services.
Keeping people connected with the compatible equipment and data they
need to do their work as they develop an increasingly nomadic workstyle
demands new design thinking in a number of areas, especially as they
will be playing a role in virtual work teams.
Enhancing morale and
creativity in a rapidly changing office environment
'Planning for interaction is a key trend in the creative
office … Areas are generously given to common activities or shared facilities
and these central spaces that are publicly owned have been given names
to reflect their status. The 'market square', the 'Piazza' and the 'Street'…'
The time-and-motion studies of Frederick
Taylor, which led to the evolution of the 20th century office, dictated
the 9-to-5 regime, the static and sedentary workstyle and the rigid
analysis and allocation of office space according to hierarchy and ownership.
Today, offices must rethink and replace those scientific management
rules with new arrangements of space and resources which respond to
more fluid, creative and random use of office buildings.
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