The editors of the book introduce:
Peter Wollmann who is now acting as a senior mentor, sparring partner, trusted advisor and catalyst for leaders in new roles and responsibilities and for organizations. Previously, he had diverse senior positions over nearly 40 years in the Finance Industry, with last years as programme director for global transformations within Zurich Insurance Company (ZIC). He is the author and publisher of a range of books and articles on strategy, leadership and project portfolio management.
Mersida Ndrevataj who is an architect and urban planner based in Venice. Her professional objective is to help better shape the built environment through a multidisciplinary research-based and human-centred design process. To this end, she is currently working and learning, immersing herself in the field of Environmental Psychology. For the last 3 years, she has been working as a Cultural Mediator and Project Manager for the Venice Biennale.
Architectural Answers on the Three-Pillar Model Requirements
In 2018, the Biennale Architettura in Venice had one focus on ‘Freespace’ or ‘Public Space’, how to create settings for—planned or random—encounters, interaction and cooperation in our days. The public free space topic was applied to cities, villages, enterprises, etc.—which means in different perspectives and contexts. The importance of an architecture providing the ideal public spaces in which context ever is overwhelming, the architecture is, therefore, a key success factor for an organization’s efficacy, performance, stability and resilience. In this context, the Danish pavilion exemplarily showed the new BLOX building at the harbour of Copenhagen.
‘Natalie Mossin has chosen to tell a Danish story of pursuing a joint approach to holistic sustainable development through interdisciplinary alliances and across sectors and communities. This theme is particularly topical in Denmark this year where the non-profit Realdania society is generously handing over the keys to BLOX—a newbuild designed by OMA to house the new Danish Architecture Center, BLOXHUB and a wide variety of other creative entities’, said Kent Martinussen, CEO, Danish Architecture Center.
‘BLOX is much more than a building. BLOX is a new space on the Copenhagen harbor and a hub for activities, proposals and meetings between people, from visitors attending the Danish Architecture Center’s exhibitions and families with children at the playground to professionals working daily with sustainable urban solutions. The aim is for BLOX to promote awareness of, and work on, architecture and urban development as key ingredients in creating a sustainable society that enjoys enhanced quality of life’, said CEO of Realdania Jesper Nygård.
Freespace—generous architecture. The thematic framework was created by Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, Curators of the 16th International Architecture Exhibition. Under the caption ‘Freespace’, the two lead curators will be focusing on the primary focus of architecture: the space in itself and its potential for generosity.
The exhibition in the Danish pavilion responds to the overarching theme by homing in on the scope of opportunities that arises when we—faced as we are by a large number of sustainability challenges—embark on the transition from bright ideas to the rigors of implementing new practices. This scope of opportunities can foster generosity—a Free-space—where architecture’s particular contribution can give built form to our needs and ideas. The title of the exhibition in the Danish pavilion sums up this approach in ‘Possible Spaces—Sustainable Development through Collaborative Innovations’. The title refers to the new opportunities that must be pursued in order to drive sustainable development, and the scope that arises when architects collaborating with professionals from other disciplines push the limits of what is possible to implement novel solutions.
The importance of architecture to cover the diverse urban needs in contexts of work and leisure, transport, mobility and contemplation.
The importance of architecture to ensure and enable encounters, cooperation and interaction—and at the end surprising innovation.
The importance of cross-profession cooperation in a diverse and complex world.
Architecture has a strong symbolic meaning and influences mindsets.
Coming from this, it is easy to describe a connection to our design building blocks or pillars.
Link to Our Three-Pillar Model and Some Initial Fundamental Practical Thoughts
Different approaches to architecture aligned to the organizational setup, e.g., hierarchical or collaborative, giving adaptive space for connectivity and travelling around a shared purpose (figure: Frank Kühn)
Sustainable Purpose
Enterprises with a well-described, convincing, motivating sustainable purpose, which is giving orientation to the leaders and employees, always need a concrete representation of the purpose in something tangible for the employee and the stakeholders. Since centuries, buildings present the self-understanding and sustainable direction of leaders of country or institutions and their culture. The building as a demonstration of hierarchical power top-down has to be substituted by a network-oriented structure, which supports very flexible interaction and cooperation in general. Additionally, to this general characteristic, attributes have to be integrated which link with the (business) specific parts of the purpose.
In any way, it is important that there is no contradiction: an enterprise with a special customer-orientated purpose must, for example, be perceived as open for customers.
One of the key requirements today, in general, is the demonstration of transparence and work–life balance in order to convince young professionals to work for an organization—a challenging task also for the architects.
Travelling Organization
The whole organization will have be transformed to have the ‘travelling mindset’, that means in terms of architecture that flexible groups of people need flexible and creative and animating free spaces to meet, interact, cooperate, interact with the environments open for quick changes if needed (this means adding more participants, running presentations, having undisturbed workshops over days, having access to all technical devices and all media, offering documentation options over longer periods, allowing picnics, etc.). People have to feel like on a trip in these contexts.
Connecting Resources
The necessity to allow—or better to proactively offer, to force or to automatically make happen—that people from all over the organization and beyond meet by accident, get in touch for interaction while having a coffee and cooperate in relaxed environments was already mentioned. Architecture has to connect and not to separate in these days. A high percentage of innovation, good ideas, commitments and plans are made unplanned when people meet by accident. The example of the BLOX building in Copenhagen shows how this can be achieved today, best in a place where different paths of mobility meet stationary professional hubs which provide open space areas for uncomplicated, convenient meetings.
On the other hand, architecture itself links more and more with other sciences and professions like technology, environment care, sociology, policy, etc.—so designing enterprise buildings in linkage with (public) open spaces got an interdisciplinary task.
How Architecture Today Is Meeting the Described Key Challenges
The architectural role on creating and promoting a sustainable enterprise and quality of life.
The architecture role on creating the optimal working space and improving productivity.
The implementation of a built form of our needs and ideas in a constantly changing environment and interdisciplinary context.
- 1.
SMART Enterprise Buildings
To face the challenges of network, fast evolving and user requirements, the next generation of buildings must be highly adaptable to different environments. All buildings and organizations must modernize to operate in today’s world. The future requires becoming smarter. Smart buildings will transform work, the workplace and the urban landscape in the next years. Smartness means being sustainable, flexible and healthy. Smart buildings have a sustainable consumerism and an efficient space use; they are functionally flexible and can accommodate agile, dynamic and creative ways of working; they contribute to a healthy working experience and to the workforce well-being (The EDGE in Amsterdam, Le Hive in Paris, Majunga Tower in Paris).
Enterprises can play a leading role in the creation of smart cities, as they run in an urban infrastructure. Creating smart enterprise buildings and linking them together, the urban landscape can be redefined and the urban life can be improved (Jurong Lake District in Singapore, Songdo city in Seoul).
In the future cities will continue playing an important role. Becoming smart, their public spaces will be used as support for the community to meet and collaborate. In this context, it is worth mentioning that according to the concept of the BLOX building in Copenhagen, mentioned in the beginning of this article, it is impossible to simply pass it without interacting with the building even though it is a major traffic hub between several destinations. You have to go up and down and pass several parts of the building which invite you to stay for a drink, to meet people or to view at something. This is best explained in a video with Ellen van Loon, often called ‘the Dutch design duchess’ of the world-renowned Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA). She talks in the video about the ideas and ‘architectural contamination’ that went into creating the new multifunctional BLOX building in the heart of Copenhagen.2
It’s also important for city planners and entrepreneurs to collaborate with each other on creating new models of entrepreneurship. This way, they can drive placemaking and regeneration of disadvantaged spaces, instead of building new office buildings.
- 2.
SMART Workspace
In the smart age, the work style and workspace change and give rise to a more connected and complex work environment.
The workplace is not anymore only a physical location. It is both a physical space and a virtual space. At the same time, there is a demand for an agile workspace—a transformable and adaptable working environment. The agile workspace layout is composed by a variety of working areas, and it allows employers to work wherever they feel more inspired and energized.
The workplace is a network structure formed by mobile, remote and virtual workers. Therefore, technology, connectivity and communication will be a survival need.
The future workplace is more human; it ensures comfort (air quality, lighting, heating, etc.), health and well-being to the workers. There is an increasing focus on the well-being who has led to the development of a WELL Building Standard certification.3 Creating ideal work environment enterprises boost productivity and attract employers.
The workplace is community oriented; the work is flexible and responds to work–life balance and quality. The workplace is based around social activities, services and common workspaces.
- 3.
Entrepreneurial Workspaces
Architecture is a container of physical and human resources. Entire buildings are being designed to encourage the encounters and the collaboration between employers and disciplines. The workplace evolves in an infrastructure of social interaction zone and innovation and creativity. As a result, the workplace becomes more flexible; it has no more physical boundaries and offers a fluid interaction. This way people with a common interest meet and collaborate.
Activity-based working or the non-assigned seating is a workspace design approach where employees are not tied to a particular space, traditionally a desk, but they transit between different settings according to the task they are doing. These ways they have more opportunities to interact in between them. 4
Co-location or innovation hubs, it is a workplace approach where multiple organizations share the same building. This is considered as an important infrastructure in a multidisciplinary context, and it is usually engaged with innovative projects. This workplace encourages a new form of collaboration between disciplines who generates innovative thinking. It’s also a shared infrastructure that merges global and local resources to create innovation.5
Co-working or the membership-based workspaces, where flexible workers share flexible workspaces. The space is flexible, and it can be configured according to the different needs. The co-working members work for different organizations. They have different skills that they can provide to the community. They are usually engaged in a social mission, and this makes the members feel part of a community. They organize networking events, training programmes and social events.6
Nowadays, the role of architecture and urban development is to create and promote a sustainable environment and quality of life. So, the longevity of future buildings depends on their ability to adapt themselves to a quick social and technological evolving landscape. That’s why enterprises have to combine their strategy and structure to the next smart generation.
Moreover, architecture and enterprises must be both ‘everything at once’, and their collective knowledge will become more powerful.
Conclusion and Lessons Learnt
We think we gave some convincing reasons why organization and leadership for enterprises of which industry, size and maturity state ever, has to include the very real, tangible and concrete aspect of architecture with a lot more focus than in the past. Architecture gives orientation and reflects the company DNA with the described three pillars. Architecture is a main factor in transformations—not a more or less neglectable or onerous task to think through but a high-priority long-term and important one.
The ideas of international architects at the Biennale last year were animating, stunning and very real. And beyond the interests of the pure enterprise, some big topics of mankind were additionally tackled like how to save environment, how to create health and how to support education. Architecture is a key science and profession to give answers to the question how we want to live tomorrow in general, not only in our working environment.