Telecommuting. A word with a square sound and aseptic feel that refers to faces in front of screens. Working from home, however, is much more than that. It is inhabiting a space for hours carrying out a professional activity that can be very diverse. And it requires a different environment depending on who it is, what the place is like, and each person's personal or family circumstances. Working at home - for some a luxury, for others a nail in the shoe - entails creating a tailored, unique environment. And, without a doubt, distance yourself from the most impersonal and gray offices.
Over the last few years, the concept of remote work has been digested and established. And architects and interior designers reaffirm their proposals in a new reality already announced, where private life and work activity coexist with increasing frequency. Meanwhile, digital nomads are emerging as a growing global tribe aiming for new geographic heights of freedom. And it inspires, with its transhumance of data, also the universe of design.
Bridget Vranckx, a Barcelona-based editor, has compiled this in the book I work@home. Offices for a new era, by Loft Publications, a good list of ideas for having work spaces at home. Designed by architecture and interior design studios from very diverse countries around the world, they fit into the home in a stimulating way.
Ben Allen Studio brings a colorful and dynamic solution to an apartment in the Barbican neighborhood in London. To create the work area, he thickened one of the partitions using an arched architectural element. This houses the desk, which folds and unfolds, and a storage area for office supplies. Two colors highlight the place and infuse it with vitality.
The most elegant wooden paneling has led the current kitchens to open to the living-dining room, concealing appliances. Ylab Arquitectos extends this resource to arrange a hidden work table in an apartment in Barcelona. It is part of a project where the space is organized around islands of flexible furniture and integrated cabinets.
Cubic meters in architecture, when generous, offer good reserves of space and inventiveness. Barcelona architects Anna and Eugeni Bach take advantage of the significant height of an apartment in the center of the city to design the kitchen as a volume that does not reach the ceiling, and create a loft with an unexpected suspended table as a work and rest area.
When the home has a garden, the possibilities include projects such as that of the British firm Koto Design, creator of a sculptural multipurpose cabin. A geometric volume, inspired by the Japanese philosophy of Wabi-sabi, with a large inclined window that permanently connects the interior with the garden or landscape.
Architect Ben Allen also proposes a pavilion, which in his case is easily assembled and dismantled. He has installed it in the garden courtyard of a small apartment in southwest London, where a family with two small children resides. The octagonal volume, 15 m2, is topped by a hexagonal roof with a skylight through which light penetrates from above. One glass side provides views and supplemental natural lighting. For its part, the green toned coating seeks to integrate into places with vegetation. It is an extra space that provides peace of mind to the heads of the family to work, and a place to play or read for the little ones.
When square meters are not the impediment in a house, allocating a room solely as an office continues to be an added bonus of order and comfort for the family. Contemporary design has given us a magnificent catalog of desks to choose from in recent years. In Europe, there are already more than double the number of people working from home compared to before the pandemic. And hybrid use environments are expected to continue to rise. That flexible, versatile and multifunctional scenario for the house, which we have been hearing about for decades, is finally becoming evident. In the new situation of work domesticity, the office can no longer be the last stronghold and become the main room with views and abundant natural light.
