The structure of the webmagazine WOW! is based on a nomadic, fluid and jelly editorial staff. Jelly is also the structure of the session, that can agree to the theme launched by Renata Sias, editor of WOW!, or stray from the topic or reject it, and offer other subjects or stimuli.
The WOW! Jelly Session #1was attended by:
Michele De Lucchi, Giulio Ceppi, Paola Silva Coronel, Gilberto Dondè (presidente GPTW), Alessandro Zollo (AD GPTW), Luigi Marchetti (Managing Director Creation Bauman), Daniele Andriolo (Facility manager Siemens), Maximilian Speciani (web designer), Marco Siciliano (studente polimi), Mara Rosola (studente polimi), Luca Sansottera (studente polimi), Margherita Turchi (studente polimi), Nunzia Ricciardi (Country Manager Kinnarps Italia), Renata Sias (direttore WOW!)
The matter under discussion related to the trend emerged very clearly from the last Orgatec.
The new trend of the office space organization suggests alcoves, cocoons, personal “bubbles”. A return to the cubicle?
Architect Michele De Lucchi tells about the work carried out with his students …
“We thought about the needs of the individual or the single groups to identify with an architectural element. We worked on an office similar to an empty urban space to be filled with buildings.
The most interesting thing was to see the projects together, for what really matters is the overall environment created. Maybe the way from the sidewalk to one’s workplace is more important than the workplace itself”.
Giulio Ceppi moves on to other destabilizing metaphors. It’s like going back to a sort of pantheism from the strict, clerical structure; the liquid office does no longer require cathedrals, but small shrines, or maybe kneeling-stools.
Actually, each of us has many “bubbles”, that change to the situation.
The working environment seems to be developing on two extreme poles: actually, besides the “office bubble” and the “home bubble” there are other new poles. The “car bubble” for instance, we should also consider the car-working concept.
Then, there is one more pole I’m working on for the project of a new Autogrill, the “parking bubble”. And the “temporary office bubble” that I used for a coworking in Buenos Aires. And even the “virtual fair bubble” designed not as an alternative to the actual fair, but as booster”.
Daniele Andriolo, facility manager at Siemens Italia, has gained experience in multinational companies. For the very first time life styles are entering the office and changing the working styles; prompted by the social network models, communication has turned into cooperation, the work is organized by projects and each one has its own level of responsibility.
From the point of view of space, companies are changing to a hybrid model no longer based on a concept of territoriality but on some defined cooperation areas for small groups and teleconference rooms. “We lack the coocon, the bubble for individual concentration. Now we are carrying out a in-house social network to connect with more people in real time. Yet it is essential that these models are shared”.
Nunzia Ricciardi, country manager at Kinnarps Italia, confirms that this model is also used for the R&D of new products.
“We must give up the idea of “my desk” my space is what I’m doing in that particular moment. Products are no longer classified by typology but by macro-activities: cooperation, concentration, regeneration”.
Gilberto Dondè, chairman of Great Place to Work Italia, is the sposkesman of the employees’ needs. “Although interesting, the projects discussed here risk to be imposed according to a top-down logic.
Sometimes these models are designed without considering the future users. By not sharing them with the subjects before they are carried out, we risk to wreck any project. Participation can bring about important and stimulating contributions”.
Alessandro Zollo, managing director Great Place to Work Italia, stresses another aspect.
“We are reasoning as if all companies were alike, but that’s not the case. Business management and space organization convey the company’s identity; there are still companies with a hierarchical structure, where all that has been said so far cannot be applied and wouldn’t even work”.
Luigi Marchetti, managing director Creation Baumann, resumes the topic to point out the importance of acoustics in offices and any common environment, in order to define individual privacy bubbles ”.
Paola Silva Coronel raises a requirement: “Now people has very often more than one job. Hence, the office must be multi-tasking as its residents. For instance, I’m thinking of an office for a part-time job, yet allowing to stay on and carry out other personal tasks”.
The meeting goes on with some amusing anectodes about the difficulty to change the conventional models and at the end everyone is aware that there is not just one effective solution, now the problem is to choose how we can change.
By Renata Sias
Do tell us stories about how hard it is to accept changes in the business management and space organization!
Would yoy like to attend the next WOW! Jelly Session (January 9th) and share your opinion on the subjects under discussion?
