Predicting what the workplace will be like in five years’ time has become a challenge that can elude even the most seasoned business leaders and facility managers. Such is the pace at which the nature of work, and where we do it, is changing.

So imagine the difficulty of predicting the floor space, desking and IT you’ll need in ten years – or if you’re building a corporate campus, the very nature of the architecture that will best support productivity – in a future when our work (and daily) routines may be vastly different to what they are today.

It’s little wonder that coworking spaces have been multiplying as quickly they have; part of their appeal is the flexibility they offer companies as staff numbers fluctuate. As our guest columnist Dr Caroline Burns suggests in this issue’s ‘Critique’ section, coworking is turning the workplace into a service, not a space.

What more should we expect of the workplace? A number of our features this issue highlight health and wellbeing as critical factors at work. Our ‘In Conversation’ feature discusses wellness as a new metric for workplace performance via the WELL Building Standard.

A fascinating ‘Critique’ feature looks into the prospect and reality of bioresponsive, human-aware workplaces. And we see how health enters the design outcome at offices by HASSELL and RSP, and Thai studio Onion in our ‘Case Studies’ section.

The Indesign Media Asia office is currently buzzing with preparations for the INDE.Awards 2018 and the special gala event and associated programming, which will be held in late June here in Singapore. We look forward to uncovering the threads that are defining architecture and design across the Asia Pacific region in our broad spectrum of award categories and sharing the discussion with you.I hope you’ll join us at the gala in June!

Cubes 90 is on sale now!