Entries Written By Mark Eltringham
Hybrid working and the other legacies of lockdown, three years on
It’s now three years since the world was hit with the full force of COVID-19 and went into lockdown. So what better time to take stock on the legacy of that period on the way we work and the way we design spaces to accommodate work? Underlying these changes is a general shift towards flexible …
in News, Workplace Design
Germany’s secondary cities drive demand for flexible workspace
Demand for flexible workspace continues to grow across Germany, up 47 percent year-on-year, following an ongoing shift to agile working practices, according to The Instant Group’s newly released German Flexible Market Review. The rapid increase in demand in the flexible office market is being driven by Hanover, Hamburg, Dusseldorf, Stuttgart and Leipzig. Leipzig, located an …
in News, Workplace Design
An unconventional pink is the perfect colour for changing times and is Pantone Colour of the Year 2023
A colour described by the Pantone Institute as “an unconventional red for an unconventional time”, has been named as the trend forecaster’s colour of the year for 2023. Viva Magenta, or more prosaically Pantone 18-1750, is a vivid pink with purplish undertones, described by Laurie Pressman of the Institute as “assertive but not aggressive … …
People often feel too busy to move around enough at work – but there are solutions
A large proportion of workers feel they have too much work to be able to move around during the working day, with chronic stress and anxiety becoming increasingly prevalent, according to a new report supported by CIMSPA (The Chartered Institute for the Management of Sport and Physical Activity). Despite growing health issues linked with consistently …
Forget the future of work and instead focus on its futures
Over recent months I’ve had a lot of conversations with organisations about their workplace plans and strategies as they plan for their own future of work. And I’ve listened in on even more conversations. One notion that is constantly expressed by the people developing such strategies is that they are very uncertain about both the …
Changing our perceptions of colour and office design
Strange as it may seem, there are some colours that the human eye can’t see and it’s not just because they exist outside the usual spectrum. Compared to many other animals, the typical human eye is only capable of perceiving light across a narrow band of wavelengths of somewhere between 390 and 750 nanometers. That …
in News, Workplace Design
The studied carelessness of agile workplaces
In recent years we have grown very fond of borrowing foreign words to describe some of the more difficult to express ideas about wellbeing and work. We’ve adopted Eudaimonia from the Ancient Greek of Aristotle to describe the nuances of wellbeing, happiness and purpose. We went nuts briefly for the Scandinavian idea of hygge to …
Ergonomics – so easy a child can do it
Language may be constantly evolving but if you want to see how a word can lose its meaning quickly, there’s no better example than watching the way some companies can misappropriate it in a misguided attempt to help them sell their products. For example, the big problem with the way some people talk about the …
in News, Workplace Design
The problem of office distraction and the quest for sanctuary (some of the time)
Ask most office workers what they find most annoying and unproductive about their workplace and they’re most likely by some distance to suggest that it is sound, closely followed by the related issue of visual privacy.. The issue has intensified over the past few years with the proliferation of mobile devices and as the amount …
Working from home means getting your priorities right
It should come as no great surprise to learn that data from Leesman, the world’s leading workplace analyst, found that the chair was seen by remote working employees as the second most important feature in creating a productive home working environment. Cited by 90 percent of people, it was narrowly beaten into second place only …
