The Future of Work
Investigating the evolution of office work, and its impact on the urban environment. City / Building / Desk Downtown Los Angeles 1980-present: From Center of Command and Control to Neighborhood Firms deploying digital technologies to expand work space and time The Los Angeles Riots: widespread looting, assault, arson, and DIGIWhat mightT ALthe future ofAGE work look like and how could this reshape our cities? Rodney King beating murder occurred causing over $1 billion dollars of damage to the city Northridge Earthquake
Without transit, LA’s poly-nucleated form relies 1993 1997 1999 on freeways and cars. Traffic congestion and 1980s 1990 The Metro Red Line opens The City of Los Angeles legalizes The Los Angeles City Council passes an smog denigrate Southern California's quality of All the large The light rail Metro downtown Los Angeles to home-based businesses, Adaptive Re-Use Ordinance -- encourages the life, and the public clamors for alternatives while department stores Blue Line opens in North Hollywood, via requiring them to register with redevelopment of buildings in the downtown seeking to protect suburban idylls from of downtown LA 1990 at a cost of Hollywood and the the city in order to pay city 1998 core that are either of “historic significance” increased density. Metro opens 22 years after the along Broadway US$877 million, Mid-Wilshire district business taxes The 1903 or “economically distressed.” CITY Having completed One streetcar system closes. Its wheel-and-spoke are closed 1987 connecting downtown Continental California Plaza, Two service pattern increases access to the former Moss vs. US Tax Court Los Angeles to Long Building in California Plaza opened with CBD while creating transit oriented development 1980s establishes the ability for Beach downtown is 1999 1980 opportunities near outlying stations 61 only 30% leased space, at a New financing vehicles commercial tenant 1995 Downtown Los Angeles converted into Staples Center time when the downtown are developed, which Conceived of as an office interior that lofts New modes of communication improvements to be Downtown is re-imagined through Sports Arena 2000 vacancy rate hovered around and rapid tran allow backing from a 1980s could morph into a myriad of sportation expensed as necessary the mixing of luxury residential opens The 1906 San Fernando Building in 25%--among the nation’s services support 24-hour wider array of sources – configurations, the conceptual operating cost repairs David Harvey’s “the high rises, green spaces and office downtown Los Angeles completes 1981 highest. Given the lack of global markets where including the newly Gehry's design framework behind the interior of this Economic Recovery Tax rather than capital regime of flexible towers, reversing both early zoning its conversion to lofts -- one of the demand for downtown office knowledge spreads quickly, developed commercial accumula for Chiat Day in advertising firm’s office relied on Act is enacted - expenditures, and are thus tion” and later redevelopment efforts to first to take advantage of the 1999 space, construction of new capital circulates rapidly, -backed-mortgage- begins – more readily Venice, Los correlating increased productivity encourages construction exempt from prohibitive create a homogenous corporate Adaptive Reuse Ordinance office buildings in the area and relationships span security and widely available Angeles is with an enhanced control of one's by allowing developers taxation levels As all kinds of resources landscape in the CBD. Civic leaders 1983 would come to a halt. The great distances capital pools and unconventional, own working environment. Taylorist to deduct taxes from 25% and information become and downtown boosters abandon One California Plaza construction hiatus would accumulates itself in 1993 as is the new concepts of efficiency are abandoned of the value of their 1985 more mobile, management efforts to re-establish the CBD and persist for a decade. Built as The LA Times reports that the form of of the firm becomes Chiat Day, system of as office work is increasingly seen as project Frank Gehry instead follow the cues to changing speculative office space, the 75% of downtown LA’s speculative real hot-desking that 1998 moments of collaboration, increasingly a question of housing preferences among a small Hayden Tract: generic, open floor plate is major properties are foreign estate Chiat day TBWA/Chiat Day information sharing, problem solving 1999 Umbrella Building logistics. As the friction of group of downtown residential as flexible and owned investments – a large introduces, and reflection, each of which Designed by Eric Owen distance is dissolved by pioneers, planners and developers. accommodating as office proportion backed by increased mobility and whereby no requires a discreet environment. Moss, the Umbrella
BLDG 64, 65 Downtown is transformed into space architecture can be Japanese investors specific This office interior is conceived to Building, in Culver City’s enhanced access, DTLA by the addition of 15,000 employee has a 71 accommodate a range of Hayden Tract, is one of a downtown’s importance is housing units less about its character as particular or configurations, allowing the workers series of Westside office 1991 a place than about its individual desk 69, 70 to customize office environments to buildings seeking to satisfy Through digital Prodigy 72, 73 The telephone is now subsumed Ad for Radio Shack functioning as a node on their preferences a burgeoning market for technologies, firms Service ad into telecommunications, data 1987 Lightweight Handheld various networks 67 With limited demand for “creative offices;” colonize the domestic and downtown office space, the 2000 management and transmission New technologies increase the commercial spaces that Micron PC ad public realms as new notion of downtown as CBD is devices. The drive to unplug efficiencies of communication 'World Wide What?' news page seek to catalyze innovation, This advertisement workspaces, and lengthen largely abandoned. A through cloud computing, and transportation, and make Sophisticated yet affordable technologies curiosity, and risk-taking, to claims that in order 1981 the workday beyond its neighborhood emerges wireless communication, and Honeywell. 'What the Heck is Electronic Mail?' ad instant interaction in distant encourage office workers to stay connected to the challenge the status quo to work, all one traditional 9 to 5 bounds contactless energy—not the Long the iconic office appliance, the telephone is now 1980s places possible. These 1989 office even when they are not physically there, 1996 1997 among employees by needs is a more flexible raceways subsumed into telecommunications, data management and LA City institutes an Artist in technologies also produce the Regus hotel offices and provide firms with new forms of technological DEGW publishes its “Workstyle Cisco Systems offices in San creating fully immersive computer, a website advertised here—ultimately transmission devices. Desks and offices become temporarily Residence program - encourages expectations of 24-hour are founded in control over office workers. Controlling the 2000” - workplaces were to be open Jose opens - every employee office experiences 74 and a company car- expands firms’ spatial and cluttered with digital age appliances and infrastructure as some initial live-work reuse in commerce, on-call access to Brussels - seeks to technology and access to it, firms expand the and non-territorial, with no cellular has a tablet computer or a suggesting the temporal reach over workers and workers are increasingly disciplined through office the downtown area on a small, employees, and mobile fill the niche for accountability of office workers beyond the offices. Telecommuting and notebook computer, and no one ideal worker is a 75 1980 flexibility in managing them 62 technologies 63 experimental scale productivity 66 the mobile worker bounds of the traditional workday as well as working from home is encouraged has a designated personal desk nomad 68 DESK 1991 beyond the perimeter of the office workplace 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 MACHINE AGE ELECTRONIC AGE DIGITAL AGE MACHINE AGE MACHINE AGE ELECTRONIC AGE ELECTRONIC AGE DIGITAL AGE DIGITAL AGE AGE AL T DIGI
61: Future Rail Transit Network, 1983, photograph, Metro,
1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1910 1920 1930 1940 1940 1950 1960 1960 1970 1980 1980 1990 2000 2000 2010 2010 2000 1870 1940 1985 2000
WHAT WE DID THE CONTEXT We conducted a three-year research project with the We researched the history and trajectory of office The notion of work has been historically structured The old binary oppositions of home and office, public University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) think-tank buildings and forms of 21st-century work to both around three distinct scales: the desk, the building, and private, downtown and suburb, interior architecture cityLAB to investigate the future of office work, and its challenge well-established narratives about urban and the city. At the desk scale, work life has undergone and building design, now fail to describe the current impact on the urban environment, using Los Angeles as centers and propose new ways to think about time, a process of perpetual change due to innovations world of work. The distinctions of the desk, the building, a case study. At the onset of our research, we asked: location, and the organization of work. Our research in technology, efficiency, and communication that and the city—as they pertain to work—are inadequate. Is the generic office building still relevant? Does Rem included published third-party studies, roundtable continually challenge the way we consider and define Los Angeles proves an excellent case study here, as the Koolhaas’s 1993 “Typical Plan” still apply to today’s world discussions with urban planning and workplace experts, a work “environment.” At the scale of buildings and oldest post-war American city, and as such the model of work? If not, what is the future of this building type? and the development of models that proposed new cities, new patterns of work are allowing—or in many for many American cities. Like most American cities, And, because these buildings take up so much of the strategies for office design as it relates to urban planning. cases, forcing—workers’ lives to be entirely restructured. Los Angeles’ urban core was historically a place for real estate in our cities, what would the urban impact However, with instantaneous forms of communication industry, commerce, and work. When urban sprawl The outcomes highlight emerging ecologies and be if their DNA were to change? and rapid flows of information, the physical dimensions pushed the city boundaries outward and established economies of work in Los Angeles with the power to that have historically bound each worker—the cubicle, many suburbs in the mid-20th century, Downtown To investigate these questions, our multiyear project transform how we address challenges presented by the building floor plate, or city district, for example—have Los Angeles retreated, losing much of its population, explored the nature of “work” and the spaces it inhabits central business district, urban land use, office buildings, become increasingly difficult to characterize. businesses, and vibrancy. Today, Downtown Los Angeles through three sequential processes: Research, Formulation, desk configurations, and the spaces of everyday life on is experiencing a renaissance as a district that is rooted and Design. a broader scale. in work. How it continues to support businesses, workers, and visitors will be key to its resilience.
2 Gensler Research | The Future of Work 3 THE RESULTS: YEAR ONE THE RESULTS: YEAR TWO THE RESULTS: YEAR THREE Our first year of research explored the history of Our second year of research focused on the conceptual The conclusion of our three-year research collaboration Downtown Los Angeles within a broader genealogy of and physical gaps within office design. How might offered paradigmatic future scenarios that re-conceptualize city planning, office building design, and technology. traditional places for work be re-formulated? How might and critique the existing structures, locations, and The re-emergence of Downtown Los Angeles challenges new professional alliances be forged to improve how we boundaries of work within Los Angeles. We engaged the definition of urban centers elsewhere; it serves as work, whether between urban planning and industrial industry and academic leaders from a multitude of fields, WHAT’S NEXT one potential location for work in the city among many. design, or mobile technology and architecture? We from real estate to mobility design, along with a group The collaboration with UCLA’s Technology has allowed modern knowledge workers investigated these questions via a series of roundtable of graduate urban planning and architecture students cityLAB allowed the gap between to be more mobile, allowing the office and its typical discussions and panel presentations, during which at UCLA. Through a series of cityLAB and Gensler- academia and practice to dissolve interior to encroach on the airport, café, public park, leading academics and professionals proposed sites led workshops, they collectively developed, designed, by tapping into minds in design plaza, automobile, and most notably, the home. in Los Angeles that are most ripe for rethinking. and tested new ideas. We then curated the three-year and related industries, and by compilation of work—including books, pamphlets, Our findings from year one charted the evolution of We organized the content from these discussions into providing a tangible context for posters, and videos—into a weeklong exhibition at work activity in Los Angeles by rethinking the concept a four-part publication, -Less: Re-wiring Work, the second academic theory. The process the Architecture + Design Museum in Downtown Los of a central business district in scalar, material terms: volume of The Future of Office Work series. In this synthesized history and critical Angeles. This event drew together LA city planners, “city,” “building,” and “desk.” They are outlined in the first volume, we explore moving design and professional analysis with the realities of architects, developers, and academics, and spurred new publication in our series, The Future of Office Work, Vol. 1: boundaries beyond the confines of the desk, building, practice, such as building and city conversations about the potential futures of Los Angeles. How We Got Here. and city to ultimately render work and the contemporary codes, legislation, and finance, worker location-less. adding another dimension of inquiry outside the boundaries of pragmatism, while simultaneously providing a foundation for more informed speculation. We continue to work with the City of Los Angeles to blur the boundaries between academia and practice, between space and the city.
This cityLAB + Gensler Los Angeles publication insti- V1 gates a new conversation about the future of office work, office buildings, and their impacts on downtown The Future of Office Work Los Angeles. This instigation takes place during an era of urban resurgence in the city and increased mobility in contemporary life. Los Angeles can be considered both America’s last industrial, railroad city and its first post-industrial, automobile-centered city. As such, the trajectory of downtown Los Angeles’s future potentially charts the future of other American downtowns— especially those in the West and in the Sunbelt. Office work in Los Angeles has been sheltered by multiple versions of the mono-functional office building, both high and low-rise, situated within many different settings; from the office parks and low-rise industrial buildings of the San Fernando and San Gabriel Valleys, to the landscape of logistics that is the Port of Los Angeles, to the autotopia of Century City, to the creative offices spaces of the Westside, and to work- live spaces in a re-imagined downtown. The variety of Los Angeles’s office landscape is the result of decades of architectural experimentation, and, according to some boosters, has contributed to its resilience to broad economic change. The reimagining that continues to transform Los Angeles’s central business district into downtown Los Angeles does so by reconfiguring the regimes of time, place, and selves that set the temporal and spatial definitions of work downtown, and in particular, the kind of downtown work most often labeled “office work”. The Future of Off ice Work Volume 1: How We Got Here “In this situation, public space ceases to exist. It appears as a ‘sea’ of possible meetings or— WHAT THIS MEANS WHAT THIS MEANS WHAT THIS MEANS articulated by confessions, Given Los Angeles’ decentralized nature, it serves as an Technology and the mobile worker are dissolving the The city must reposition itself to accommodate and sermons, advertisements, excellent case study for work that permeates beyond the traditional definitions of the workplace. The modern perpetuate the emerging ecologies of the workplace. reading voices—a continuum downtown setting. The history of Downtown Los Angeles knowledge worker requires both mobility and some The physical workplace holds a significant stake in the is a narrative of perpetual revisionism. It has been able to version of a home base, presenting challenges to consider real estate market; it is imperative not only to be aware of ‘interiors.’ The world morph in ways more consistent with 21st-century forms for architectural and urban design applications. This of the increasingly rapid change in the specific ways appears as one interior, of work, and as such is a lesson for other cities with dynamic workforce challenges the way we think about work is done, but also to harness the opportunity for as a fluid of information.” similar struggles. As we chart this evolution, the existing office design and office culture. Via this phase of work, change in the city as a whole—whether that is something scales of work are becoming less distinct, overlapping we seek to raise the question: What would “location-less” as simple as adding electrical outlets by public benches, – “The Continuous Interior,” Winy Maas, and intermingling instead. work mean for the design and material form of a 21st- or as complex as rethinking transportation infrastructure. FARMAX: Excursions on Density century downtown?
4 Gensler Research | The Future of Work 5 About Gensler As architects, designers, planners, and consultants, we partner with our clients on some 3,000 projects every year. These projects can be as small as a wine label or as large as a new urban district. With more than 5,000 professionals networked across 46 locations, we serve our clients as trusted advisors, combining localized expertise with global perspective wherever new opportunities arise. Our work reflects an enduring commitment to sustainability and the belief that design is one of the most powerful strategic tools for securing lasting competitive advantage.
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Future of Work Exhibit, A+D Architecture and Design Museum, Los Angeles, CA Locations Team Bibliography Image Credits Abu Dhabi Denver Morristown São Paulo Robert Jernigan, Li Wen, Shawn Gehle, Muhi Bahri, Koolhaas, Rem. “Typical Plan.” SMLXL. All images credited to Gensler Atlanta Detroit New York Seattle Aaron Gensler, Danielle Duryea, Michael Frederick, Boston: Monacelli Press, 1999. unless otherwise noted. Austin Dubai Newport Beach Seoul Thea Gonzales, Julian Ma, Meghan Moran, Maas, Winy. “The Continuous Interior.” FARMAX: Future Rail Transit Network, LACTC Baltimore Hong Kong Oakland Shanghai Serena Ye, Dana Cuff (cityLAB-UCLA), Aaron Cayer Excursions on Density. 010 Uitgeverij, June 1998. Annual Report (1983), page 2 (cityLAB-UCLA), Emmanuel Soriano (cityLAB-UCLA), Bangalore Houston Philadelphia Singapore Tim Higgins (cityLAB-UCLA), Shujan Bertrand The Future of Office Work, Vol. 1: How Honeywell ad (1981), page 2 Bangkok La Crosse Phoenix Sydney (Coalesse), Tanner Blackman (LA District 14), We Got Here. Gensler, 2015. Julian Bleecker (Near Future Laboratory), Shaw Walker ad (1980), page 2 Beijing Las Vegas Pittsburgh Tampa Jane Blumenfeld (Fmr. City of LA), Gary Bradski MPG Office Trust, One California Boston London Raleigh-Durham Tokyo (Magic Leap, OpenCV), Madeleine Brand (KCRW), Plaza (image), page 2 Ava Bromberg (The Reef), Tracy Brower (Herman Birmingham Los Angeles San Diego Toronto Miller), Jerome Chang (BLANKSPACES), Paul Dourish MPG Office Trust, One California Charlotte Mexico City San Francisco Washington, DC Plaza (plan), page 2 (UC Irvine), Russell Fortmeyer (Arup), Chicago Miami San Jose Gloria Gerace (Art Projects Consultant), Iim Jacobson Radio Shack ad (1987), 213 (Industry Partners), Therese Kelly (Therese Kelly Dallas Minneapolis San José AUD), Joan Ling (UCLA), Arty Maharaih (DTZ), My Linh Truong, page 6 Jennifer Miller (USC), Louise Mozingo (UC Berkeley), Carl Muhlstein (Jones Lang LaSalle), Mohamed Sharif (UCLA/BAD), Roger Sherman (UCLA), Don Spivack (Fmr. CRA/LA), Jen Stein (USC), Dan Sturges (Mobility Design), John Underkoffler (Oblong Industries). The full list of project contributors is acknowledged in Gensler’s The Future of Office Work publication series. Graphic Design: Wesley Meyer, Minjung Lee
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