What does the ‘place’ in workplace really mean?

It’s a question that can’t be divorced from technology, nor the experience of people at work. This issue we look at how technology is influencing new approaches to workplace design, but we also ponder what our technological future holds.

PwC South East Asia Consulting. Photo by Owen Raggett, courtesy of Siren Design

Collectively, we’ll soon need to grapple with some confronting realities about the advancement of tech that could make us more productive at work. The signs point to more personalised data about workers; what might that mean for the designers who shape environments for them?

WeWork Suntec Tower. Photo courtesy of WeWork

Data is already being leveraged to new ends in the workplace sector. We talk to WeWork’s Managing Director for Southeast Asia Turochas Fuad about the company’s massive expansion – including its custom workplace-design offer and the analytics behind it.

Turochas ‘T’ Fuad. Photo by Justin Loh

A number of our case study projects reveal the extent to which the workplace is being redefined for human experience as much as output, and to facilitate the most effective communication between people. Some of the questions we investigate in this issue include:

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How do you design for speed and agility for thousands of employees?

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To what extent can design break the mould when it comes to branding and efficiency?

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How ‘public’ can a shared workspace be?

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Is working so different from learning?

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How do humans factor into a technology-driven workplace?

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We also look at how practitioners in the built-environment industry work. For our ‘In Conversation’ feature, we sat down with Arup and HASSELL to find out how the latter strategised and designed a future-ready Singapore workplace for the former, with a view to a cohesive regional workplace strategy and the evolution of the business.

Arup Singapore. Photo by E. K. Yap, courtesy of HASSELL

In a profile feature, Plystudio Architects share their strategies for optimising their scope and output as a small firm via a disciplined approach to the processes of design, practice and construction.

Victor Lee and Jacqueline Yeo. Photo by Khoo Guo Jie / Studio Periphery

INDE.Awards 2019 Luminary Budiman Hendropurnomo of Denton Corker Marshall Jakarta tells us about the joys and struggles of practising in Indonesia. And we ask four industry figures for their predictions about how they’ll use technology in their practices over the next two years.

Budiman Hendropurnomo. Photo by Andre Wiredja

We can’t wait to reveal the shortlist and winners in the INDE.Awards 2019 over the coming months. As I write, the Jury is hard at work reviewing a record-breaking number of entries from across the Indo-Pacific region.

This year the INDEs will be celebrated in Melbourne on 21 June.

We wish all entrants the best of luck. Join us for the celebration!