While traditionally seen as restrictive and antisocial, private office booths that have been revamped are surprisingly gaining popularity. Stylish, noise-cancelling, and informed by Scandinavian design, these pods represent a change in the design sphere which aims to make workplaces more appealing to a diverse set of employees. It opens up avenues for companies to maintain large, open-plan spaces while also providing a suitable area for individual work, thereby catering for a combination of office and remote working personnel, by using flexible furniture and adaptive building layouts—ranging from pods and portable meeting rooms to an entire floor plan created to form click-on walls.
According to Kay Sargent, from design and architecture consultancy firm HOK, previous trends aimed at uniformity—standards, guidelines, and designs that accommodated the average worker doing average tasks. Sargent, however, believes this is no longer the case and the attitude of “one size fits all” needs to be replaced with “one size fits none”.
Fast emerging are small businesses that specialise in fabricating booths, meeting pods, or fully assembled flat-pack rooms. Co-founder of Room, Morten Meisner-Jensen, a firm that manufactures modular architecture and was established in 2018, boasts a 300% increase in revenue over the previous four years. He attributes this growth to the widespread movement towards open workplaces, and the subsequent need for quieter spaces for taking phone calls. His company’s impressive client range includes names like Amazon, JPMorgan, and Soho House, further emphasizing the robust demand.
The exponential growth in the area, considered stuffy and enclosed before, can be attributed to an interesting blend of factors, says Tim Oldman, CEO of property consultancy firm Leesman. One such factor contributing to the change was the pandemic. While some remote workers were disturbed by household responsibilities, others discovered that working in isolated spaces, such as sheds or studies, offered the visual and acoustic privacy needed for increased productivity, Oldman says.
Oldman argues that when it comes to jobs requiring focus, on average, an individual is more equipped to handle it at home than at an office. This applies to phone calls as well. Anna Squires Levine, Chief Commercial Officer at workspace provider Industrious, observes that the high degree of privacy people have grown accustomed to means that public phone calls are no longer the norm.
Initially, Levine of Industrious, which operates 200 co-working spaces across North America, was unsure about the potential of installing booths in their workspaces. Levine was sceptical about whether people would prefer to take calls inside a small enclosure. However, after trialling them, the response was overwhelmingly positive, leading Industrious to purchase nearly 3,000 units.
In Finland, it was a complex task for Samu Hällfors and his specialised office furniture business team to create suitable private booths for workplaces. The creation process, which began over a decade ago, required fine-tuning aspects such as soundproofing and providing proper temperature management for one-person pods. Hällfors also highlighted the complexity of ensuring proper air circulation within a compact space to avoid provoking any claustrophobic feelings.
Nevertheless, their efforts laid the foundation for Hällfors’s firm, Framery’s success. The rise of modular furnishings gave Framery an edge in the market. However, the company’s journey to success took a while; it only reached revenues of €1 million in 2014. After five years, the company celebrated passing €100 million and, by 2023, appreciated its global annual revenue standing at about €150 million from distribution to 74 countries.
The business pivot of the 2010s and 2020s gave Framery and similar businesses a significant boost. With the aid of low interest rates and advancing technologies, tech start-ups are expanding, necessitating more adaptive workspaces for either quick growth or potential failure. Co-working spaces have initiative to provide not only an optimal work environment but also more flexibility for conventional businesses, which effectively raises the standard for office designs.
According to JLL, a real estate group, it is projected that by 2030, flexible options will encompass 30 per cent of all office spaces. Gary Helm, the founder of Obo, an office design studio in London, nodded to this trend. Given that leases durations are now shorter, Helm outlined the necessity for workspaces to be more adaptable. His company, Obo, is the UK distributor for OmniRoom, a modular infrastructure consisting of aluminium parts that can be assembled together to create variable room sizes; a product manufactured by acoustic specialist, Mute. As Helm described, this is a move towards a “modular architecture, adaptive architecture”.
David O’Coimin, director of Nook, reports that between 2021 and 2023, the company has observed a substantial 230% growth in revenue. This has been attributed to the flexibility of customizable spaces that provide the advantage to adapt according to needs and requirements. This has particularly been beneficial in office spaces, where there may be a sudden need for increased meeting rooms.
Nook’s specialisation lies within its ‘huddle pod’ modules and individual booths that offer a private working environment within busy spaces. Much of the technology employed in the creations was initially engineered to facilitate young people with special educational needs. The additional features such as calming, twinkling lights were initially designed for sensory departments aimed at supporting children with autism, providing a less overwhelming atmosphere. Adjustable lightning that was originally intended to assist people living with ADHD and Dyslexia has demonstrated significant impacts on information processing, both for neurodiverse and neurotypical people.
Emma Flowers from the Manchester-based interior designing company Jolie has noticed a growing demand for private workspace throughout several sectors, notably biotech. The observation has largely been ascribed to workers requiring concentration for individual tasks including coding.
Drawing inspirations from Susan Cain’s book, ‘Quiet’, O’Coimin believes that catering to introverts and providing solutions for neurodiverse people inadvertently results in a better outcome for everyone, resonating with Cain’s core argument. The design of workplaces often fails to take into account the needs of introverts, making modular furniture a necessary change.
The environmental implications connected with restructuring workspace are considerable. Conventional practices often include erecting drywalls for new occupants, only to later demolish them. Modular systems offer environmentally-friendly alternatives by providing adaptive architecture. This allows newly moved occupants to assemble rooms as per their need and disassemble them afterwards, further reducing waste.
Finally, Meisner-Jensen perceives this sustainable aspect as the key opportunity. Room’s recent product lines include large meeting rooms and offices that come as flat-pack products and can be assembled “like Lego blocks” as per the floorplan requirements. The purpose of creating adjustable modules is to ensure they can be repeatedly assembled and disassembled, contributing positively towards sustainable goals.
Levine from Industrious opines that while the cost of these arrangements may exceed that of conventional architecture, it’s evident that the direction office design is heading towards is, unquestionably, more physically adaptable. The continual adaptability of office space may ultimately serve as a substitute for traditional building practices, states Meisner-Jensen. “You commence with a blank canvas, and everything within that area is entirely adaptable… Essentially, it provides you the ability to have a workspace that can shift tact based on the most critical factor: the individuals who utilise it.” – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2024.