Office space: a view of the future

TO BUILD asked partners of a large South African architectural firm what their views were on the future of office space and whether the concept of dedicated office parks could survive in the next decade, especially in a post-pandemic world.

- Gareth Griffiths

Guy Briggs, the Head of Urban Design, a director and partner at dhk says that trends in office park design and development have been changing worldwide since the start of the 21st Century and that the advent of mixed-use precincts or parks has come of age.

“We need firstly to understand that the office park concept suggests a standalone office development, usually on the urban fringes, accessible only by car. The concept has its origins in the zonal land use planning of the twentieth century. Via this outdated concept, developers segregated out different uses from one another, with access provided between them by car. This approach to city making was born ironically of concerns for the health of people living in overcrowded residential city quarters right next to noxiously polluting factories – but has limited relevance to the requirements of the 21st Century city,” he says.

Key to this development paradigm was the concept that the employee or business owner ‘travelled to work’. A situation which we all know only too well, having spent up to two hours in traffic each day. But this is notoriously unproductive, creating pollution and adding to the greenhouse gas problem.

But in the past decade at least, significant trends have placed the office worker/ business owner and his staff in a centrally located area with access to the residential opportunities, office, shops, schools and even to the factory.