Workplace design in Asia: 5 themes that will stand out in 2018

As organisations across Asia embrace new technologies and welcome more millennials, workspaces are taking on a new hue – defined by people’s changing habits and preferences. Digital technologies are bringing more flexibility to the workplace, with teams working remotely. By 2020, 42.5% of the global workforce will be mobile. As many as 61% of workers today operate at least partly from outside the office. Going into 2018, these trends will continue to redefine workspace design. The composition of the workforce is another important factor. Millennials, who will constitute half the global workforce by 2020, are bringing their own strong likes and dislikes to the workplace. In some Asian countries, the number is even bigger. In Singapore, millennials make up the largest generation in the workforce. Office design will reflect their strong preferences such as their affinity for digital technologies, their aversion for rigidity and hierarchy, and their love for sharing and collaborating. Design breakthroughs will come from working closely with clients to provide solutions for their real needs and bring out the essence of the company’s brand. Designers are today’s problem-solvers, who are using insights from data to understand employee working patterns and providing customised solutions. To find out what offices in Asia will look like in 2018, Insights spoke with Space Matrix’s design director, Paul Rundle. In this piece, we’ll dive into five design workplace themes for 2018. The hospitality theme: The boundaries between work and leisure are collapsing and there is no better way to confirm this trend than by examining a few modern offices in Asia. Companies in Singapore and Hong Kong have a distinct preference for fluid spaces with a hospitality feel, where the layout is open, pantries look more like coffee shops, and bold and bright interiors dominate. The push for the hospitality theme is coming from millennial workers who prefer open, collaborative spaces. Eaton House, a social work club in Hong Kong’s financial district, is a fine example of creating a lounge-like vibe in a workspace. Space Matrix designed this open and contemporary space where there are quiet corners to concentrate on work, a private lounge for meetings and a coffee bar to socialise and brainstorm. Tech-driven design: Digital technologies have impacted businesses across industries and that is leaving a strong imprint on office space design. Until a few years ago, a bank or an insurance company’s office looked quite different from that of an advertising firm or a media house. Now those conventional ideas are going out of the window. Prudential Singapore, for example, wanted to create a new experience for its employees by giving them a collaborative, technology-enabled office space. Space Matrix created a next-generation workspace that engages the tech-savvy and also takes forward the company’s core values of “collaboration, innovation, trust and empowerment, and accountability.” With enhanced security, Prudential employees now have access to the wifi and can work from anywhere in the office. One wall can be converted into multiple video screens, with content controlled remotely. Events in the auditorium can be streamed live to the entire office at the touch of a button. Wellness-inspired design: Even with flexible work policies, people spend a significant number of their waking hours indoors. Organisations are now looking at making employees’ time in the office pleasant and relaxing. In cities with high air pollution, such as in China and India, office spaces have clean and green solutions incorporated into the design such as a “green wall” or air purifiers fitted into the central air conditioning. A key theme in the Prudential Singapore’s new office is health and wellness. Employees now have shower facilities, sleeping pods and games and entertainment, besides a zen garden. Data-backed design: Today, we can understand what a client requires from what the client’s own data tells us. People in the same company have different working styles depending on the nature of their work, the culture or age. With data, we can unearth those patterns and adapt the design solution accordingly. While working on the LinkedIn office in Bangalore, our analysis showed that employees of two departments needed quiet zones, seven departments needed mobile and flexible solutions and 45 departments needed spaces to collaborate and brainstorm. We provided them height adjustable desks and cubicle panels that employees can at the push of a button raise for more privacy or lower for a brainstorming or stand-up meeting. Culture takes centrestage: As multinationals explore campuses and large, all-inclusive facilities in India and China, design becomes a critical unifying aspect between the company’s global ethos and local cultural elements. These projects require deep research to unearth the unique attributes that define the company globally and what local features would enhance that further. When an American healthcare company decided to build an office space in Mumbai of over 560,000 sq ft, it wanted the space to reflect its global values besides bringing in some India-ness to it. Space Matrix used the “seven chakras of the human body” from traditional Indian medicine that reinforced the company’s focus on health and gave it a local flavour.