Architecture in Work

Cedric Price’s East London Fun Palace (top)
BIG and Heatherwick’s Google Campus proposal (bottom)

This thesis is looking into the new relationships between architecture and work culture in light of the current information revolution. The modern city have been built with clear zoning distinctions, from residential to commercial to industrial zones, whether if inherited from historical urban fabrics or from industrial revolution of the past century.

The rise of the information society have eroded these clear distinctions, as technology has surely been transforming the relationship between work and man. The technological trends of the 2000s have seen the culture of work transforming. With the virtual environment increasingly integrated with work (ie. Skype, virtual conferencing, etc), giving potential for workers to become nomadic and siteless, negating the ‘commute’ or ‘office’; thus decentralizing the city.

In contrary, giant companies such as Apple and Google sought to keep workers by providing all the necessary services within their company ‘campuses’ (ie. recreational activities, beds, restaurant, or even daycare), not unlike Cedric Price’s Fun Palace proposal though controlled by a corporate overlord.

Other workers are increasingly working freelance in adapted workspaces such as co-working spaces or cafes or re-adapted post-industrial buildings, in contrast to the typical corporate, hierarchical Grade A offices in CBD areas.

Much of the work for architects today is to design a tall iconic tower consisting of a core and maximized floor area (or perhaps with a commercial podium). However with the changing technological context of work, architects now have the opportunity to address these issues in other ways. This thesis sought to look at alternatives for architects to design for work.