Onoffice magazine

Nestled in a patch of parkland in Groningen, the Netherlands, sits a new office building that has been touted as one of the greenest in Europe. It’s certainly one of the most flamboyant. The 92m-tall tower, designed for the city’s Education Executive Agency and Tax Office, has the sort of aerodynamic expression generally reserved for pavilions, museums or modern churches – not sensible offices built during straightened times. The structure’s undulating curves, accented by horizontal fins flowing across the facade,…

They say that in times like these people increasingly turn to philosophy, so where is the philosophical element in today’s workplace design? Theories like Charles Handy’s portfolio worker and Shamrock organisation have been floating around in office-thinking minds for years but have never materialised into tangible product solutions. Any attempt to create experimental office furniture to match the thinkers’ hypotheses was soon watered down by the commercial reality of the marketplace. Yet this year at the Milan furniture fair we…