For decades, the office was designed around efficiency. Rows of desks, meeting rooms booked by the hour and formal reception areas reflected a workplace built around routine, hierarchy and process. It was somewhere employees were expected to be.
Today, that expectation has fundamentally changed. Hybrid working has given employees a choice about where they work, while AI is rapidly reshaping how work gets done. As technology increasingly automates repetitive and transactional tasks, the office has become more valuable as a place for the things AI cannot easily replicate: collaboration, creativity, mentoring, relationship-building and shared experiences.
This represents one of the biggest shifts in workplace design for a generation. The question is no longer simply, “How many desks do we need?” It is, “Why would people choose to come into the office?”
The answer increasingly lies in experience.
The most successful workplaces today borrow far more from hospitality, retail and even entertainment than traditional corporate design. The office has become an experience in its own right.
Thoughtworks’ new Barcelona office illustrates how this shift is taking shape. From the outset, the global technology consultancy wanted to create a destination rather than simply another place to work. The workplace combines quiet focus areas, collaborative project settings and flexible social spaces that encourage people to move, connect and spend time together. A café-style breakout, adaptable workshop space and panoramic terrace support everything from informal conversations and team sessions to client presentations and larger events.
The experience is also rooted in its location. The layout draws inspiration from Barcelona’s distinctive grid, while locally sourced furniture, crafted finishes and subtle references to the city’s architecture create a strong sense of place. A dedicated wellness room, neuro-inclusive color palette and carefully considered acoustic treatments ensure the workplace feels welcoming and supports different needs and ways of working.
Experiences like these create workplaces that people remember — and, importantly, want to return to.
The pandemic did not simply accelerate hybrid working; it changed the psychological contract between employer and employee. Employees now evaluate the office in the same way they evaluate almost every other destination in their lives: Is the journey worthwhile? Will I gain something from being there that I cannot get elsewhere?
Leesman research shows that 86% of employees now work in more than one location, reinforcing that hybrid working is now the norm rather than the exception. In that context, the office can no longer rely on obligation. It must compete with the comfort, flexibility and convenience of home.
This is why sensory design has become so important. Light, acoustics, texture, color, greenery and opportunities for social interaction all influence whether a workplace feels energizing or draining.
A recently completed headquarters for Suntory Beverage & Food GB&I demonstrates how brand values can be translated into physical experience. The workplace draws on both the company’s Japanese heritage and its portfolio of consumer brands, using warm timber, natural materials and greenery to create a calm and welcoming atmosphere. Immersive meeting rooms inspired by Lucozade and Ribena bring individual brand personalities to life, while a central social hub—The Oasis—supports everything from informal lunches to company-wide events.
The result is not simply an office. It is an environment designed to encourage connection, creativity and shared identity.
The rise of AI is adding another layer of urgency to this transformation. The UK’s AI sector is expanding rapidly, with investment, hiring and workplace demand increasingly concentrated in technology, finance, biotech and deep-tech businesses. These organizations have very different spatial requirements from traditional corporate occupiers.
An AI engineer might spend hours in deep concentration developing a model, then move immediately into a sprint session with product, commercial and customer teams. Researchers need quiet environments for sustained focus, while client-facing teams need spaces that can support demonstrations, workshops and strategic discussions.
This creates a workplace challenge that is fundamentally different from the one offices were designed for in the past.
Area’s work with organizations such as Databricks and AMD highlights this shift. These projects combine focused work settings, collaborative project spaces, social environments and client engagement areas within a single workplace ecosystem, recognizing that high-growth AI businesses operate across multiple modes of work simultaneously.
The human dimension is equally important. Gensler’s 2026 workplace research found that employees who are the heaviest AI users are also among the most collaborative, suggesting that AI is increasing rather than replacing the need for human interaction. As routine tasks become more automated, the office becomes the place where human intelligence creates the greatest value through creativity, mentoring, innovation and complex problem-solving.
In that sense, AI is not making the office obsolete. It is making the quality of the office more important.
Another significant change in workplace design is the move away from generic corporate interiors towards spaces that tell an organization’s story. Employees increasingly want to feel connected to the organizations they work for. Clients want workplaces that communicate confidence, creativity and authenticity.
Design therefore becomes an expression of culture rather than simply a backdrop for work. This is where experiential design differs from traditional branding. It is not about logos on walls; it is about creating emotional cues through materials, lighting, spatial planning and social experience.
When employees walk into a workplace, they should be able to sense what the organization values before they read a single mission statement.
Perhaps the greatest challenge facing organizations today is maintaining culture in an increasingly distributed workforce. Culture cannot be mandated through policy documents. It develops through everyday interactions: shared coffee breaks, chance conversations, celebrating success together and helping colleagues solve problems.
The workplace therefore plays a critical role in creating opportunities for these moments to happen naturally.
At Lendlease’s The Turing Building in Stratford, this idea extends beyond individual offices to the building as a whole. Lounge TwentyOne, a shared hospitality-led amenity on the top floor, was designed as a destination where occupiers can work, meet, socialise and recharge. Informal lounges, flexible event spaces, two fully equipped bars, bookable meeting rooms, wellness spaces and a landscaped rooftop terrace provide different reasons for people to step away from their desks and connect throughout the day.
The result is less like a traditional communal office floor and more like a members’ lounge, creating a shared experience that can help strengthen connection and a sense of community between occupiers. The same thinking extends into the reception, where a café and library space create further opportunities to pause and interact rather than simply pass through.
The project also shows how experience-led design can sit alongside strong environmental performance. The Turing Building has achieved BREEAM Outstanding, alongside an EPC A and WiredScore Platinum, demonstrating that spaces designed around connection, hospitality and wellbeing can also form part of a high-performing, sustainable building.
These spaces recognize something fundamental about workplace culture: relationships are rarely built inside meeting rooms. They are built between meetings.
The business case for experiential workplaces is becoming increasingly compelling. Gensler’s research found that employees in great workplaces are almost three times more likely to want to stay with their employer than those in poor workplace environments. In a competitive labour market, that makes workplace design a talent strategy as much as a real-estate decision.
Organizations that continue to view the office primarily through the lens of efficiency risk creating environments that satisfy operational requirements while failing to inspire the people using them.
Those that invest in meaningful workplace experiences are creating something much more valuable: places that strengthen community, encourage innovation and give employees genuine reasons to come together.
The workplace of the future will not be defined by desks or occupancy statistics. Nor will it be defined by technology alone. Instead, its success will be measured by how effectively it supports human experience.
The organizations that thrive will be those that recognize offices are no longer simply places where work happens. They are places where culture is built, ideas are exchanged, relationships are formed and innovation accelerates.
In an age where employees have greater choice than ever before, that may prove to be the workplace’s greatest competitive advantage. The future office is not institutional. It is experiential. And as AI transforms the work we do and hybrid working transforms where we do it, experience—not attendance—may become the new measure of workplace success.
Editor’s Note: James Geekie is group design director at Area, a workplace design, interior architecture and fit-out specialist that creates commercial office environments through its four studios in the UK and one in Dubai.