Integrating workspace and building communities
BY OLIVIA PAINE HLMARCHITECTS.COM
Olivia is an architect and leading figure within the asset and workplace sector at HLM Architects. Working predominantly with Local Councils she is focused on delivering innovative solutions which make asset portfolios deliver value for community and client.
She is passionate about the re-generation of our towns to support the emerging localism agenda and most recently has co-founded the #bettertowns roadmap; an innovative initiative launched to lead the way towards better, healthier and more successful towns. The decision to create #bettertowns was driven by a desire to champion a logical, evidence-led approach focussing on truly understanding a locality and its challenges before offering deliverable, achievable solutions through collaboration with the multi-disciplinary consortium.
These days the workplace feels almost as outmoded as the high street. Have both outlived their usefulness, or can we take lessons from the success of social media to rejuvenate both? Social media marries experience with transaction, story with data, narrative with knowledge. It is immediate. It is personal. And it adapts at the drop of a hashtag. The ‘StreetScaper’ – think horizontal skyscraper combining workplace, high street and social media buzz – is a concept which puts the plot back into the plot.
Gen Z have redefined our priorities. A new generation of influencers, content creators and story makers, learning from social media by weaving together different industries that can easily collaborate and communicate with each other. What they sell or promote is experience-led and locally sourced, championing co-working, independent business and pop-up culture. Users no longer buy things; they buy into stories. This distinction between buying and ‘buying into’ is driving a seismic shift in the way we use our digital and built environments, with the clinical process of buying moving to the more efficient online landscapes, whilst experiential offerings take precedence in our physical space.
Like many other trends, the global pandemic has accelerated the pace of change – magnifying emerging cracks into irreversible fissures. The growing rift between our digital and physical landscapes is demonstrating that the notion of workplace and commercial space is dated, harking to a more siloed era when a story was something you chose to read or see, rather than a constantly updating stream of consciousness from around the globe.
The workplace and high street have both suffered from the same trivialisation of their base offering. Remote working has left companies wondering what their central offices are for, whilst online shopping (plus a healthy dose of lockdown) has pushed all but the most robust high streets into near collapse. Their focus on productivity and ease of access has ironically been their own undoing – creating spaces devoid of personality which could never match the ‘click jump’ efficiency of the online world. However, this dual decline may not spell the death sentence that some predict. Indeed, it is entirely possibly that the combination of these elements will pen a far more exciting comeback than they could individually.
The StreetScaper proposes an intermediate workplace which harnesses the advantages of remote working without the isolation or backache which our kitchen tables have provided over the past year. It envisages a new use for vacant retail spaces on our local high streets, providing easily accessible co-working hubs as part of a wider network of local businesses and multi-functional spaces. It is both a physical concept – using design to stitch together multiple different uses with the ability to adapt easily over the course of the year, month or even day – and a community narrative, which creates a sense of collective ownership and support in the centre of our towns.
The partnership has many obvious advantages – and I am by no means the first to point them out. Local high streets would gain a new variety of user, ones who consistently activate the space and who would likely contribute regularly to both a day and night-time economy. Workers would enjoy a reduced commute, an ergonomic and digitally enabled remote workspace and a new community of local workers whose diversity could prove beneficial and stimulating.
But to be truly successful, this collaboration must extend further than the workplace and the high street, recognising the network of demographics, industries, history, education, and governance which create a locality. Every town has a character borne through decades of evolution and this should be reflected in their streetscape. Solutions will take many forms creating a variety of flexible, multi-tenancy spaces and more permanent units which will vary from public sector organisations to co-working hubs and successful retail. The goal should be to establish a core offering which responds to the backbone of local industry, around which the more flexible spaces can adapt to and support the changing ideas of its community; fostering local entrepreneurs and supporting pop-up events which prevent the place from stagnating.
There are hurdles to overcome to create this level of diversity and local government must take a more active role in their town centres – starting with creating a true understanding of the characters and plot lines which define their locality. Once this gap is bridged the challenges of ownership, business rates and operation must be overcome – no mean feat, but nor is it insurmountable if local authorities are assisted in creating a business case which can demonstrate financial reward in conjunction with economic and social value.
The StreetScaper must become a space which not only has its own narrative, but also supports the narratives of others – both physical and digital. It must be recognisable yet customisable and, crucially, representative. Workspace will play an important part in encouraging people to continue to use their local centres following the pandemic, creating an intermediate option which will support, rather than replace the head office. Whilst they are only part of the story, these hubs have the potential to be one of the central, more permanent, protagonists tethered not to the idea of efficiency but to wellbeing, flexibility and connectivity. This shift will offer something different to our online sphere, allowing both worlds to take charge of what they are good at – finding a way to co-exist without undermining each other.