Global real estate company Cushman &
Wakefield has adapted to the challenge of
continuing to work in a physical space with
their new Six Feet Office design strategies.
The Six Feet Office is a state of the art
transformation to ensure social distancing. By
installing signals around its office to track
employees’ movements via their mobile
phones, the infrastructure can potentially send
alerts when six-feet rules are breached.
While adapting to such advancements, the
immediate need of the hour will be for
organizations to manage which employees
necessarily need to come to the office, how
often the office is sanitised, whether the airflow
is sufficient. In-office videoconferencing should
no longer involve a group of people huddled
around a screen. Seamless in-person
communication, remote collaboration spaces
(such as virtual whiteboards), and
asynchronous working models will quickly
move from futuristic ideas to becoming the
standard organisational norm.
These adjustments may not only enhance how
work is done but also reduce overheads and
encourage savings. Companies should take a
fresh look at how much and where space is
required and how it promotes avenues for
collaboration, productivity, and cultural
exchange. The coming transformation will
practice an assortment of space solutions:
owned space, standard leases, flexible leases,
flex space, and remote work.
Home- the Safe Haven
Before the pandemic, a majority of urban
communities chose to live in dense residential
neighbourhoods because of the convenience of
proximity to work, schools, and the benefits of
shared resources and amenities. Living in
shoebox apartments at the expense of being
close to sought-after destinations (such as
museums, restaurants, and clubs) offered
solace and respite from living in cramped
spaces. However, since the impact of
Covid-19, residents are particularly concerned
about the health and safety risks that come
with shared physical touch-points. We were
previously used to twisting doorknobs, pressing
buttons, and tapping touch screens to navigate
our immediate living spaces. But now, visibility,
clear communication, and immediate response
are growing concerns for people to feel secure
in their homes.
Where you live now is also where you work,
hang out, ‘eat out’ and attend concerts. This has
renewed the significance and the design of the
state of the home environment. Urban space
planners and designers have come to recognise
the need to redesign residential spaces with the
versatility to transform it into a space that
supports work, inculcates learning, while also
addressing comfort and social needs. For
residents now, living at home has to meet the
perfect balance of ‘community’ while also
retaining ‘individuality.’
As some citizens settle into long-term remote
working, they’ll need to make spatial changes to
their apartments powered by technology.
Homes will have to be restructured to include a
workspace. Australian design firm Woods Bagot
launched its ‘Split Shift Home’ design to
respond to this need. The unit offers features
like moveable walls, a space for cultivating
plants and crops, and extra office and food
storage spaces. Movable walls can be built into
units to divide or expand spaces. Sensorial
controls inspired by immersive luxury-hotel-like
experiences can install softer lighting, music,
and even scents to signal the end of the
workday.
For many affluent city dwellers, having a way to
visualise, track, and gauge current traffic and
hygiene conditions of a public space could
enable people to plan their days around
commotions, such as disinfection or
containment zones, and avoid moving during
certain specific times. Technological
advancements like using smart surfaces in
public areas to alert supervisors and residents
when they need disinfection are key to helping
residents continue a safe and secure life within
their spaces. Certain other features could look
like real-time status dashboards to display traffic
conditions and measure risk density in an area
through heat maps.
With e-Governance bridging the gap between
people and the government through contact
tracing apps, the state and ruling bodies will
have direct ways to address, correct and warn
citizens. With health becoming a universal
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