Drawing by Henk Mooij 1930–2015

At first glance, it may seem contradictory, but flexibility in the use of buildings can increase when the building layout becomes more stable. The freedom of movement for the user will be greater when less stuff has to be moved to accommodate change. By loosening up the connectedness of the organization and its housing, the organization will have more freedom of movement.

Most companies approach their housing requirements notably with the idea that tailor-made working or living environments must be created for specific users all over again. Each time the organization changes, users move and the building layout is adjusted accordingly. This approach is more expensive as the pace of change is faster. Thus, precisely those organizations, which have to operate in a highly dynamic environment, have been the first to seek another approach, to free themselves from the rising costs of changes.

Freedom of movement

The essence of concepts as ‘new ways of working’ consists of providing different particular (work) places with a distinct character in the most appropriate (not necessarily smallest) place. The user organizes his work and decides by that, where, when and with whom to perform his tasks. Depending on the nature of the activity and on the possibilities of the different settings, the user chooses his place in an environment of substantially different workplaces that combine to provide better support than the universal traditional workplace.

Choice requires differences

Modern concepts of management often assign great importance to the independence of staff. In the new approach of housing, this is translated into offering different situations, among which the user chooses in each case. This freedom of choice is fine, but the user becomes responsible for choosing the optimal setting for performing a specific activity. From the moment the users are solely responsible for the results of their operations, they will want optimal work settings to be available for selection.

In short: offering choice is accompanied by the obligation to offer meaningful variations. A quiet place must be quiet, a meeting area must increase the chance to meet, and a conference room must have all that is needed to facilitate a good group process. Eminent quality will only be created when the design of the building and its furnishings is based, to a greater extent than is now the case, on the unique possibilities that the building and location offer. Each place will have to have a certain functional quality.

Besides practical legitimacy places must also possess residential quality, that invites to be used, even if used for different purposes than originally designed. Writers often have favorite workplaces that are not at all meant as a place of work, for example on the train, a corner of the cafe, or a fisherman’s hut. Such sites are elected based on their character over much better ergonomically correct workstations in the office or at home. With good design and an open eye for the quality of the building and its location such quality places can be produced. Here the user can actively use the environment as support and inspiration for his activities and his collaboration with others.

Change requires stable elements

The working or living environment should not only be challenging and stimulating by offering differences, but it must also provide the increasingly mobile user with the necessary resting-places.

Because many things are quickly changing in an organization, the work environment should not be entirely changing along with it. If people can hold on to lasting elements that have a timeless quality, they don’t experience the changes as threatening. On the contrary, a readiness to accept the changes is encouraged. People will move forward out of their volition, and not be startled by an environment which suddenly begins to change. It is precisely those things from the past which generations have seen come and go that possess the quality of putting people at their ease.

SKetch for a Monument by Henk Mooij 1930–2015

Some trees grow more slowly than people are aging. Everything that changes faster than us we consider more transitory and does not provide the desired reassurance. Precisely the things from the past that have seen generations come and go, have such quality. Any work or living environment should have its ‘monuments’. For example by a business by maintaining their old headquarters, where the company originates, and the company’s history can is present. But it can also by a typical company specific way of using the counter or through the utilization of those crazy, actually not that functional, cabinets, especially preferred by the boss. It is an interesting thought, to realize that monuments can provide the necessary stability in changing environments, but that changing environments never lead to the creation of monuments. For a monument to come into existence, it is necessary that the changes let some parts of the environment untouched for an extended period.

Change also means letting go

A more dynamic use of the working and living environment means that each user and the environment after a “warm embrace” also must be able to let go again. During the period of use, it must be possible to make the environment personalized. Not by adjusting the building’s arrangement of furniture every time, but by altering utilization and interpretation of it.

The building design should encourage this for example by offering a limited number of movable elements. If a working or living space is designed as multi-deployable, changes can primarily be absorbed by using the same space differently. Only secondarily the use of another space needs to be considered. The disused space is not modified but is left for subsequent use.

In modern theater, there are brilliant examples of sets that function throughout the whole of play, simply by regrouping and reinterpretation.

Movement

Letting go also means that, to the degree that you are confident that facilities are available everywhere, you don’t have to carry everything with you. No moving things along, which are interchangeable. Information can be accessed from anywhere. Moreover, as a result of the miniaturization the boundary is shifting between things that belong to the working or living environment and things that can be kept personally and be moved freely. This has consequences for the degree to which and the manner in which activities are bound to places. Hybrid solutions such as desks on castors, trolleys and the like, which were fashionable at the time of new ways of working, marked the beginning of an evolution toward a new demarcation between mobile and fixed elements in the working environment. The separation will also be more sharply in the future. Anything that can be mobile will be as mobile as the user, and all that is part of the environment will be more stable and integrated into the building and the larger ecological systems, aiming at the greater sustainable quality.

Like the modern tourist who is traveling with a small suitcase containing the essential personal items and a credit card to get everything else from hotel and restaurant environments, the modern knowledge worker can work anywhere with his smartphone, tablet or laptop, even in places not intended for work and still use all services offered online.

Organizations which take this approach to the use of accommodation, break free from constraints of their building and benefit from the particular qualities of certain places at certain times for certain periods.

Stability

Through greater mobility of the free items, the not mobile elements in the built environment can be stabilized.

Not the trying to follow the ever-changing user, but the unique quality of the location and buildings should be the starting point for creating the working or living environment. The building has thus become so primary in its quality and therefore independent positioned towards the use, that it will remain an interesting object for investors. The autonomous quality of the building forms the basis for more and more new functionality in the future and hence good profit.

Stability of the environment also simplifies management. Management can be aimed this way at the preservation of the objects themselves and does not need to respond to the capricious changes of use. Facility management has stopped moving stuff with the resident’s relocation but offers a working and living environment with adequate differentiation and quirky quality for the resident to accommodate himself. This approach provides flexibility for the users and stability in the management of the building. It reduces the cost of renovation and maintenance, arising out of relocations.

I foresee a sharper dichotomy between the environment and the use. Matters concerning the built environment will become more sustainable, their life cycle longer and so investments can be amortized over a longer period. Matters concerning the use and user will become more fleeting, and their life cycle will be shorter and hence resulting in greater flexibility.