HOME OFFICES GREAT HUBS
Work rooms taking on new life
With the gig economy changing the landscape of the work environment, the home office is no longer just a place for paying bills or doing a few hours of weekend work to ease the 9 to 5 weekday.
It’s becoming a full-time hub for freelancers and contractors, a place to set the work juices humming and burn the midnight oil.
That said, a few design savvy interior designers, developers and builders are taking note of the trend.
“With so many people working from home, it’s not just about dropping a desk into an empty space anymore,” says Amber Desilets, designer at Designers Edge Interior Design.
Whether it’s a nook tucked into the kitchen or a sumptuous private space with French doors to a garden, good design is crucial when it comes to home offices.
“Before starting a project, we really like to dig deep to see who is going to be using the home office space and what is going to be happening there,” says Desilets.
Lighting, wire management, storage and comfort are all key elements.
“We are finding that home office spaces are becoming a little bit more communal, too, with kids using it for homework and both adults using the space for work, sometimes all at the same time,” says Desilets.
And that thirst for communal office space is beginning to extend beyond a home’s borders, especially with multi-family home design, where singles are often working solo and in isolation.
“We’ve responded on more of the front end, before we even go into construction on a project,” says Al Devani, principal at Rndsqr, an inner-city developer and builder with multiple projects currently underway or about to launch.
That response embraces the idea of communal co-working space.
“We are looking at instead of common amenity rooms that don’t get used as frequently as you would think, to create common coworking space where residents go in and pull up to a hot spot station and manage it themselves,” says Devani.
The company is mulling over designs for their latest projects Grow, Peak and Courtyard 33.
“When you think about the best co-working spaces — they are casual, comfortable, where you can pull up on a couch.
“We really want to provide the right personality from a design perspective where it is like, ‘Yeah, I want to spend more time here,’ ” says Devani.
Rndsqr’s mixed-use Courtyard 33 project in Marda Loop is taking the concept a step further with 2,000 square feet of the second floor retail space slated for a co-working environment run by a private contractor, but offering preferential rates for those who live in the building.
“It just brings this level of culture and vibrancy, where owners can rent a hot spot desk.
“We are really finding that there is such a desire for people to work and live in these established neighbourhoods, close to all of the amenities, with a distinct personality, but not directly in the downtown core,” says Devani.
A recent Gallup survey found that 36 per cent of the workforce is part of the gig economy. And that number is growing.
Even more surprising, the report showed that giggers slice across demographics, with boomers at the top of the chart, followed closely by Gen Xers and millennials.
In response, condominium design is also shifting to incorporate floor plans that work with the trend.
“We are creating spaces that allow people to decide how they are going to use it — they are more dynamic in the sense that they don’t have this hard and fast programming,” says Devani.
He sees private den and office spaces going by the wayside, with open-concept spaces that offer multi-functionality rising to the fore.
Each home in Courtyard 33 will offer a sling-down desk and workstation that is able to tuck away when needed.
“It is like a flip-top table in a sense that comes down and goes up. It is built in to the actual unit,” says Devani.
But regardless of where the home office rests, whether it is coworking space or in the midst of the kitchen, creating an inspiring environment with colour, art and great functionality is key.
“After all, you are going to be spending eight to 10 hours a day in the space, it should feel good,” says Desilets.