Blurring clear borders between business and leisure space – What do modern workplaces look like?

The typology of today’s business spaces is very complex and it is nearly impossible to overview the entire range of models within it.

This is what Dejan Todorovic, MSc Arch, an assistant professor at the Faculty of Architecture in Belgrade, says at the beginning of his interview for eKapija.

As he explains, the most apparent differences compared to earlier times are the consequence of digitalization and use of new technologies in all spheres of business:

– Today’s business spaces are conditioned on the pace of modern business and are certainly busier, more dynamic, and open to quick and fast changes and simple adaptation, unlike former standardized, pre-determined workplaces.

A large number of companies has realized the importance of interior development as a component of business which should increase the employees’ comfort, but also serve as an expression of a company’s ideological principles to the current or potential clients, Todorovic believes:

– In our environment, in the past few years, with the arrival of an increasingly large number of foreign companies, the procedure of the erasing, or at least the blurring of the clear differences between business and leisure space is apparent. This offers new features to the employees and an ostensibly higher comfort in the workplace, whereas the true results of the efficiency of this principle and its implementation in our context are still questionable. The implementation of the “openspace” organizational model has nearly become a standard when it comes to modern workplaces, but it often turns out that the use of this kind of de-hierarchical space has more flaws than benefits.

Each business space has individual requirements



He adds that there’s more and more attention paid to the aesthetics of shared spaces, which are the most common type of space available to clients, and that they are often the most expressive ones when it comes to the materials, colors, systemic solutions or pieces of furniture.

– In addition to functional individual workplaces, but also spaces for meetings, it is necessary to provide the employees with suitable spaces for rest and dining, whose use will become an integral part of everyday work dynamics. In addition to meeting the needs for efficient and comfortable carrying out of everyday activities, adequate spatial capacities and adequate equipment for specific events, as well as the possibilities of simple space transformations which would support the temporary spatial needs, should be envisioned – eKapija’s interviewee explains.

Coronavirus pandemic can be a turning point in envisioning space

He believes that big events which bring about global changes, such as the current COVID-19 pandemic, can still serve as a turning point in envisioning nearly all types of everyday spaces.

– The implementation of measures for the suppression of the COVID-19 pandemic has nearly erased the borders between residential and office space, imposing the necessity of arranging individual, functional workplaces at home, for each employed member of the household. In addition to the changed spatial context, changes in the policies of numerous companies which have nearly entirely, temporarily or permanently moved their business from the physical space to the virtual one, are apparent as well. The return of business activities in the form we used to know is nearly impossible to expect – Todorovic says.

– The new conditions are opening the possibilities for envisioning innovative, nearly revolutionary, models of business spaces and other kinds of spaces and can be interpreted as the most difficult challenge for architects so far – Dejan Todorovic concludes.

Aleksandra Kekic

Arhitektonski fakultet Beograd

Faculty of Architecture

Faculty of Architecture in Belgrade

Dejan Todorović

office space

digitalization

openspace

coronavirus

covid 19

pandemic

Special Edition Newsletter

interior

Interior Design Decoration and Understanding Space

design

decoration

understanding space

newsletter