‘Coffice’: Rise of the new work space
The “coffice,” which brings the coffee-shop experience complete with sofas and large communal tables in an open, casual, and vibrant setting to the office setting, is slowly becoming a standard feature of the modern workplace in the Philippines. The attraction of a coffice can be summed up as providing the key characteristics of convenience, community, collaboration, and creativity.
In fact, in any major city, cafés and restaurants have become the unofficial meeting rooms of the business community.
The standard coffee shop is becoming a hub for employees and entrepreneurs who wish to work and collaborate with their colleagues in an informal but energized setting.
This development underscores the fact that the traditional idea of a workplace has evolved, due to new design concepts, new office demands, new establishments that provide new services, and new ways to do one’s work.
“The changing concept of work will lead to new hybrid spaces and business models in a digital and competitive global economy. With this in mind, real estate developers must lead the change or fall behind,” said Eric Manuel, VP for business development of Daiichi Properties, a leading office space developer in the Philippines today.
“As times change, so have designs and spaces as a response to the growing needs and wants of various communities. The same idea holds true for office developments and spaces,” Manuel added.
While the office is still where majority of the working community spends most of their time — around 40 hours a week, the idea of what a workplace should look like and what should happen within it has evolved and adapted to fit the changing workforce.
The concept of people going to work is no longer limited to the traditional workforce in a workplace setting. People used to go to work, but now work comes to the people. The distinction between the office and the home, or a traditional workspace and wherever else one can do work, has been blurred.
Indeed, work is no longer confined to offices. This is so because it is now easier for people who work from home — like those involved in freelance work or those whose jobs require them to be on the move — to find a space where they can productively work or do business.
Mobile work is providing a more flexible and attractive environment where people can work when they want to, where they want to, and how they want to, without the usual confines of a traditional office workspace.
Despite the adoption of coffeeshops as viable places to work, studies still note that the actual presence inside the office encourages better collaboration and communication among workers, and that remote teams do not perform as well as those that are in close physical proximity.
As such, the design of offices and buildings must be viewed as an instrument to increase productivity and engagement, by creating more than one single office environment to cater to the wants and needs of the various departments and individuals that will use them.
While cubicles are a traditional layout for office spaces, a growing number of companies are seeing the potential that open-plan areas have on employees, increasing productivity and communication among its workforce. They are discovering that the desk is no longer the sole place to work, but part of a larger ecosystem of where work is done.
“Improvements in technology have helped make the idea of open-plan spaces more possible and practical as they allow for people to work outside of cubicles and in areas where groups can collaborate and exchange ideas more frequently and more effectively,” Manuel noted.
“This is why our office developments such as World Plaza, One World Place, and The Finance Centre — all designed by Gensler — have openfloor spaces that allow our tenants to create the kind of flexible and ideal workspace that best fits the working environment they want to create,” he added.
The design of offices, buildings, and communities should reflect how 21st century digital work actually happens.
As the concept of work continues to evolve, the office building must also be re-engineered to remain relevant in the years ahead – with flexible building systems infrastructure, reusable materials, and the ability to expand or contract space through reconfiguration.