“Loose Fit”
Politico Nightly,
March 4, 2021
Politico Nightly,
March 4, 2021
Speculative sketch and caption text for Myah Ward, "Where you'll work next year”.
Post-pandemic, the workplace would be something like a ‘loose fit’: permeable to natural environments and shared uses over time. Instead of the airtight curtain-wall towers that populate so many downtowns, the new workplace will be porous, shaded and potentially more locally embedded across neighborhoods. The unsustainably large air-conditioned office interior is now reduced to a smaller footprint, and its exterior shell enlarges to create more outdoor shaded spaces for working. After hours, this outdoor room is public grounds.
Eschewing the locked glass lobby or office-block enclave, the loose-fit workplace opens up its porous envelope to common use on evenings, weekends and during periods of reduced work. Rather than a single front door, multiple entry points allow the building to cater to different constituencies day and night. In another pandemic, the building’s ground floor might be used in the same way schoolyards have been used to distribute food or supplies to local residents. As the space of work swings between home and office, this proposal turns the prospect of redundancy into possibilities for neighborhood resilience.
Post-pandemic, the workplace would be something like a ‘loose fit’: permeable to natural environments and shared uses over time. Instead of the airtight curtain-wall towers that populate so many downtowns, the new workplace will be porous, shaded and potentially more locally embedded across neighborhoods. The unsustainably large air-conditioned office interior is now reduced to a smaller footprint, and its exterior shell enlarges to create more outdoor shaded spaces for working. After hours, this outdoor room is public grounds.
Eschewing the locked glass lobby or office-block enclave, the loose-fit workplace opens up its porous envelope to common use on evenings, weekends and during periods of reduced work. Rather than a single front door, multiple entry points allow the building to cater to different constituencies day and night. In another pandemic, the building’s ground floor might be used in the same way schoolyards have been used to distribute food or supplies to local residents. As the space of work swings between home and office, this proposal turns the prospect of redundancy into possibilities for neighborhood resilience.
