ABSTRACT
This case study aims to make contributions to our notions of what a post-pandemic workplace might be. The planning for the Officeworks headquarters project was undertaken during pandemic-imposed lockdowns and office closures in Melbourne, Australia, in 2020/2021. Construction was expected to be completed by early 2023 with move-in by the end of March that year. The design direction was the result of information obtained from internal employee surveys, strategic briefing by Lend Lease and detailed briefing by Bates Smart Architects, who are the workplace designers. Through these various conduits, Officeworks’ leadership and employees’ expectations for when they planned to go to the physical office and the kind of work they would undertake were made clear; unsurprisingly their expectations represented a marked change in work patterns compared to before the pandemic. Drawing on the data a hypothesis was created leading to vision for a reimagined physical environment that they hope will represent the shifts taking place that implied two imperatives be followed. The first was the design needed to have inherent flexibility to evolve should expectations and space predictions change prior to or during occupancy. Second, the space needed to acknowledge and respond to expectations that the workplace should play a role in supporting communities and societal issues that would communicate key aspects of the organisations’ commitment to social responsibility. This case study chronicles a people-first approach to a next-generation workplace designed to build individual and organisational resilience and support togetherness. It is a recipe for extracting more from the environment than satisfying pragmatic needs and addressing status-quo organisational objectives.
