[WORKPLACE CHANGES]

 

As time passes, spaces as a background of our daily lives changes in accordance with the changes of social system and physical environment. This is mainly due to the fact that the physical space consistently contains and adapts to people, technology and the contents genetrated by them. The workplace in modern industrial society was uniformly standardized with an emphasis on the administrational efficiency. As the rapid technical progress helped bring personal computers to working environment, the workplace was built up to support and increase personal work performance. Consequently lots of partition panels were installed in the office to make the employees more focused, but the result was not what was expected. It’s been turning out to be unfavorable for
communicating and sharing ideas. Especially at the turn of this century the needs for interdisciplinary collaboration are growing to solve complicated business issues, communicative interactions and teamwork will be the priority consideration of workplace planning.

 

Due to the recent advent of smart devices, we are in a time of rapid transition when we can handle most of our works while moving. Even though technology makes distributed work possible, people still need office space for several reasons. Those are either emotional reasons like sense of belongings and social interactions and/or practical needs of communicating and stimulating each other for better performance.

This could be the right time we re-define a workplace in a whole new perspective. The four working modes -Focus, Collaborative, Social, Supportive -should coexist in harmony to make a satisfactory office life. Above all, the ratio of individual space should be reduced gradually and co-working space should be reorganized along with various working situations. The knowledge intensive work pattern today demands evolved layout along with the recent tendency of self-directed working characteristics. The definition of pleasant working environment and workplace itself is consistently changing today.

 

[THE NEEDS FOR THE WORKPLACE BRANDED]

 

Space is a powerful media to deliver a message. The concept of ‘SPACE BRANDING’ is generally used as a marketing tool in the commercial environment. As the internal branding issues are on the rise, the concept is extendedly applied from retail space to the workplace and so-called internal clients, workers. The workplace can be seen as an embodiment of corporate philosophy and vision which shows brand image to the visitors and gives a sense of pride to the employees. Living in a space based on the corporate philosophy, people share the core value and vision of the company in daily lives to make a desirable organizational culture. The mood of a workplace has a considerable influence on recruiting, too. Creative and passionate human resources prefer a branded working atmosphere.