Recently the working environment is a very real theme, even on non-specialist media. The hashtag @Linkedin #thisiswhereIwork invites to twitter ideas and pictures, in imitation of the suggestion that Wired came up with already in a pre-twitter era, a few years ago.
In Italy dailies are publishing articles on the new workstyles and even writers write about the office on the pages of current affairs magazines; like Peppe Fiore, who says: “the work space is a wonderful territory where energies are exchanged between poeple of the same kind”. Roberto Cotroneo maintains that “the empathetic communication of social networks is going to change real and public places and nobody likes to spend part of their time inside nondescript structures”.
For some weeks Sole24Ore has been publishing the series Scrivanie d’autore by the photographer Giovanna Silva, work-tables with personal objects portrayed as still life.
Yet the workplace isn’t a still life, neither static nor inert.
Today’s office is widespread and virtual, not just digital, compatible with different Ways Of Working. The workplace is made of “spheres” inside which we relate with objects or people. It’s made of “spaces” to be reconfigured according to the corporate goals and people’s changing needs.
If “the workplace is a widespread space, the remaining office – as junction of a network – has turned into an area we go through “, as Marco Sammicheli maintained during the convention Assufficio Smart and Happy Working. It isn’t a pocket or a bubble anymore, but a tunnel, a ”mac-drive”, where you can top up a device, clarify, use a piece of experience, plan as a team”.
In this mac-drive-office, is the ordinary desk still of importance?
I’d like to have your opinions on this topic.
PS: I sent some twitter @Linkedin, just as an example, for my #thisiswhereIwork are really a lot; I’m looking forward to the one about spring and summer: the balcony overlooking the Moneglia bay (Italy, Liguria, near 5Terre)…
Interactive editorial by Renata Sias