MIT researchers Ratti and Claudel, writing in the Harvard Business Review, confirm that the workplace is evolving in important ways. They share that “Today’s technology does allow global and instantaneous communication, but most of us still commute to offices for work every day…What early digital commentators missed is that even if we can work from anywhere, that does not mean we want to. We strive for places that allow us to share knowledge, to generate ideas and to pool talents and perspectives. Human aggregation, friction and the interaction of our minds are vital aspects of work, especially in the creative industries. And that is why the quality of the physical workplace is becoming more crucial than ever…Far from making offices obsolete, as the digital pioneers of the 1990s confidently predicted, technology will transform and revitalize workspaces. We could soon work in a more sociable and productive way, and not from the top of a mountain. The ominous ‘death of distance’ may be reversed with the ‘birth of a new proximity.’”
Carlo Ratti and Matthew Claudel. 2016. “If Work Is Digital, Why Do We Still Go to the Office?” Harvard Business Review, https://hbr.org/2016/04/if-work-is-digital-why-do-we-still-go-to-the-office
Sally Augustin, PhD, a cognitive scientist, is the editor of Research Design Connections (www.researchdesignconnections.com), a monthly subscription newsletter and free daily blog, where recent and classic research in the social, design, and physical sciences that can inform designers’ work are presented in straightforward language. Readers learn about the latest research findings immediately, before they’re available elsewhere. Sally, who is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, is also the author of Place Advantage: Applied Psychology for Interior Architecture (Wiley, 2009) and, with Cindy Coleman, The Designer’s Guide to Doing Research: Applying Knowledge to Inform Design (Wiley, 2012). She is a principal at Design With Science (www.designwithscience.com) and can be reached at sallyaugustin@designwithscience.com.