how a virus is giving new value to time spent together
The coronavirus pandemic swept the world like a tsunami. Frameworks and ways of working developed over 100 years suddenly became unsustainable. ‘Home office’ became a buzzword for many, and most people were thrown in the deep end. It was a matter of sorting yourself out, accepting things and – to some extent – reinventing yourself and your work. In any case, it became a case of radically adapting the way you work.
The world of work hadn’t faced disruption of this magnitude for a very long time. In the past, considerable changes tended to be triggered by ‘positive’ factors, i.e., improvements and interventions such as the assembly line, the computer and, more recently, the internet. This pandemic’s impact on our way of working has been different and more Darwinian, however: adapt or die. Now.
Now, though, it’s time to draw some positives from this experience and consider the new possibilities open to us – in fact, a long-overdue modernisation accelerated by the pandemic. Even before the coronavirus outbreak, futurologists and visionaries such as Raphael Gielgen, Trend Scout for Vitra, were arguing the future would be defined by new ways of working. They could never have foreseen it would happen so quickly, however.
It comes as no surprise, therefore, that Vitra has now developed a super up-to-date and – in my view – downright ground-breaking office concept. The Club Office. Essentially, it’s about the fact that focussed work will typically take place in the home office through remote working, and that the office is primarily a place to meet to exchange ideas, discuss things in person or work on something together. To this end, Club Office offers various spaces tailed to those specific requirements; from public areas that facilitate chance encounters to semi-public, loosely separated areas for informal project updates and closed units that feel like workshops and effectively facilitate joint working. Naturally, it must be designed as flexibly as possible so as to adapt to the required situation without losing time.
You can find out all the details on Club Office from Vitra directly, of course.
With Club Office, Vitra has impressively brought the office of the future into the present. I can completely imagine this is where our ways of working will end up because it’s not only efficient, natural and flexible in keeping with the times, it’s also really fun. It puts the focus back on the employee as a human being capable of feeling and communicating rather than viewing them as a sort of human machine. Thus, collaboration becomes both far easier and essential once more.
I am, of course, a little proud that kymo Floorwear® is providing the first full Club Office at Vitra’s headquarters in Birsfelden, Switzerland, with the comfortable floor pieces required.
Besides all the adversities brought about by the adversities, I feel its changes to working are hugely positive and, in one huge leap, have brought us further forward than we’d dared to dream. Suddenly, the future – as predicted by futurologists in recent years – has arrived and is tangible. And I think it feels great.
Here at kymo, we really want to try to develop the kymo Office in the direction of a Club Office and are excited to see where that takes us. GO ON. AND CREATE. Now.
And if you’re interested in futurology, I can warmly recommend Raphael Gielgen (mentioned above) and Sven Garbor Janszky. Two simply fascinating personalities.