The picture above is my office … and the reason I have this picture is that I was experimenting with a recently acquired wide angle lens and wondered how much of this small room could I get in one picture. The act of doing this started me thinking about work environments – more specifically the desks of architects. How have they changed over time and do they still serve the same purpose as they did just a few years ago?
I’ve written about an architects office before (my office – here) but this time I wanted to focus on the desk area itself. The question being: Can you tell anything about the person based on the appearance of their work space? I sent out a request to architects and interior designers asking for pictures of their desks – as is – with no cleaning it up any more than would be typical. I was curious to see if the desks belonging to the architects that responded would share any similarities.
Would their desks be orderly or a chaotic?
Would they be adorned with curiosities or spartan?
How many would use drafting tables, computers, or some combination of the two?
Would the desks be large or small?
How about cubicles, open bull pen arrangements, private offices?
Would it show the personality of the individual or the culture of the office?
There are no right or wrong answers to these questions and after looking through the pictures that were submitted, I couldn’t see any patterns that were consistent across all the photo’s I received. I did notice that the ownership of the business was generally was reflected in the ownership of the desk area but I think that would be expected (think of it like owning your house versus renting; you are more likely to make modifications when it’s yours). I found looking at these pictures entertaining and there was a time when I was not beneath wanting to work at a place simply because the offices looked “more inspiring” than others.
The culture of a business can partially be told through looking at the work environment. I can’t help but think that if a person lays claim to their workspace that it would infer some sort of permanence – why hang art if your not going to be there very long? Just like architectural practices and styles are varied, so to are the desks of the employees, sometimes the message conveyed is more serious and professional than others.
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So were you surprised or did you see what you expected? I would love to hear your thoughts on the value of a proper work environment and the message that gets conveyed. What did you think of some of these work desks? I would appreciate it if you would be respectful to the people who took the time to send me the images of their desks. Not everyone gets a say in how things look or how much personality they can convey at their office.
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I was surprised when I received over 80 images back so if you were kind enough to respond and I didn’t use your picture, please accept my apologies.
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Technology is cool.
I am sitting at my desk looking at the treasured relics of my architectural ancestors – rolls of sketch paper, at least 15 scales (or rulers), and a stack of orange triangles. These items share the precious real estate of my work area with more modern architectural tools – computers (hardware and software), 24″ monitor and at least 5 music speakers.
This is my desk -it’s not really a desk rather than a work surface made up of medium density fiberboard attached along the entire length of two walls of my office but it’s really good at taking all sorts of abuse and it contains items that I use all the time. The thing is, some of these things are from my father’s generation and some are the beta versions of things that are coming. I’m not sure what I should be keeping and what to replace.
We have discussed the need to be relevant in our office on several occasions. This can be related to current design trends but in our case it has more to do with how we go about doing our jobs. Do we keep doing things the same way and can we expect similar results if we do? I don’t think so but the speed at which the technology of my profession is changing, I can’t keep up. I already work a lot of overtime (and not always because I have to) and the thought that I need to learn another type of drafting software, build a web site, to blog or not to blog and how (in progress), evaluate rendering software…..it’s an endless stream of new technology, most of which will most likely need to be updated to a newer version by the time I finish typing this sentence. Meanwhile, I still need to call 5 different contractor’s, schedule the meeting with the MEP engineers, get an interpretation from the planning and zoning department, and figure out how I am going to put together a design competition on children’s playhouses for the CASA Parade of Playhouses. When am I going to learn how to weld?
Soon I will pull out a roll of tracing paper, a stack of my favorite sketching pens and pencils, and retreat into solving design problems the old fashion way by drawing by hand. For now I will ignore the way the younger architectural interns look at me with a look of befuddled amusement because I can’t discard the “technology” of the past. That’s okay, I think I see them checking some door hardware schedules in the very near future.
Maybe this is more about evolution than simply leaving the past behind.
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