Ina Nikolova: “Today, a gratifyingly large number of senior managers realize that sustainability makes economic sense, despite higher investments.”

Ina Nikolova: At the beginning of the pandemic, many people dramatically predicted that the corona pandemic would be the end of the office as a workplace — once and for all. But that is not true at all. Home office and classic office work complement each other nicely. The trend is towards mixed forms.

That’s right. The home office experience is very individual for all of us, depending on our situation in life and family status. Parents in particular have to take care of their children in parallel and are constantly forced to multitask. That is a source of great stress. Our clients frequently report that they miss the spontaneous exchange of ideas when working from home. No call can replace a personal conversation. This is especially true when creative tasks have to be solved in a team, for example in architecture or graphic design offices. In short, classic offices will not disappear, they still offer many advantages. However, they are changing: Even before the pandemic, many aspects were being critically questioned. The trend was already away from fixed workplaces and towards more flexible structures that offer different environments for exchange, focused work, or telephone calls and video conferences. The pandemic has simply accelerated developments that had already started earlier. In our opinion, the office of the future will be more of a meeting place, a place for both spontaneous and planned communication.

Sometimes things were introduced simply because they were new and trendy. Many companies wanted to keep up with the times and neglected their real needs. Everyone thought they had to have a lounge and a football table in their office just because they saw it in big American companies. But not every innovative concept is suitable for every company.

We are more and more often organizing participatory planning processes — this is what we call Phase 0. This period sometimes lasts quite a long time, in some projects it takes a year. We try to get to know our clients very well and conduct needs analysis workshops with them, for example. We also visit them in their current offices a number of times and ask them about their daily routines. This is the only way we can find out which office forms they really need. Meanwhile, we can no longer imagine working without this extensive familiarization phase. It’s the only way we can develop customized solutions. The challenge in planning is that on the one hand you have to reflect current needs, but on the other hand you should also anticipate future developments. We try to think ahead for the next ten to twenty years.

Exactly! That is the most sustainable solution. Durability is very important to us; perhaps it is an underestimated component of sustainable design.

We also try to facilitate multiple uses. Today we are faced with the problem that many buildings are only used at certain times, and this is especially true for office buildings. Better utilization of our building stock would definitely be ecologically sensible. 

Materials and surfaces play an important role in interior design. You should critically question where they come from, how long the transport routes are, how much energy is used for transport, how they are manufactured, and which raw materials are used. It is also important to us that the furniture and materials we use are recyclable.

However, there is a certain danger of greenwashing: after all, the industry has long understood that there is an ever-increasing demand for sustainable and environmentally friendly solutions — which is why the marketing departments of many companies praise everything as ecologically sound. You really have to pay attention and, as a designer, you have to take a close look. This is one of the reasons why we at Kinzo have set up our own sustainability task force that keeps briefing us on new materials, recyclability, supply chains, and the like.

We are experiencing a change in values: more and more people in Germany have a heightened awareness of the climate crisis; they are demanding sustainable solutions. Terrible developments such as the flood disaster are accelerating this trend even further. In addition, more and more companies are aware of their role model function and are trying to live up to it. In addition, globalization and the market situation mean that many people can choose where they want to work. Companies are trying to be as attractive as possible, especially to young employees. Today, a gratifyingly large number of senior managers realize that sustainability makes economic sense, despite higher investments.

Registration for the online lectures on 2 May 2022 with Peter Ippolito (Ippolito Fleitz Group), Jessica Borchardt (BAID Architekten), Margit Sichrovsky (LXSY Le Roux Sichrovsky Architekten), Petra Pfeiffer and Andreas Moser (Moser Assoziierte Architekten)
Ambiente Working 2022 – Future of Work Academy – Registration

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