ABSTRACT
The different spaces for knowledge work enhance knowledge work in its totality, and that it is the interrelationship between them that creates the very best places to work. Progressive employers take an intelligent, multifaceted approach to the demands of knowledge work by providing a range of different settings for different types of work, all within the same workplace scheme and sometimes achieved by doing different things with the same large open-plan space. The Dutch insurance company Interpolis exemplifies this attitude to providing choice in where to work depending on the task at hand. PARCS modular furniture for knowledge workers designed by Pearson Lloyd for Austrian manufacturer Bene. To help explore how to configure the PARCS system most effectively, the Bene company commissioned Royal College of Art design researcher Catherine Greene to investigate the different character types who inhabit the knowledge economy. Greene's study presented four typologies which interact with the office in a different way: Anchor; Connector; Gatherer; and Navigator.
