Life of Work: What Office Design Can Learn from the World Around Us

Life of Work: What Office Design Can Learn From the World Around Us sets out to make the twenty-first century workplace a more dynamic, engaging, colourful, flexible and inclusive place. Jeremy Myerson and Imogen Privett, from the Royal College of Art in London, looked in some unlikely places for ideas and inspiration?the academic library, theatre design, pop up events in the city and intensive team environments in air traffic control, emergency medical departments and the newsroom. Working from the position that, whilst the design of most contemporary offices satisfies physical and functional requirements, it seldom supports the psychological comfort and individual needs of the people who use them every working day, Life of Work offers an agenda for change that has significant implications for every level of workplace design and implementation. Based on a major research project between the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design at the Royal College of Art and two global industry partners, Haworth and Philips Lighting, Life of Work will be of value to anyone who has an interest in architecture or interior design, the politics and management of the working environment, space design and urban planning, as well as furniture design.

Jeremy Myerson: Director, Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design at Royal College of Art, with a remit to encourage ’design that improves quality of life’. An academic, author and activist in design for the past 30 years, he began his working life as a journalist and was founder-editor of DesignWeek in 1986.

Imogen Privett: Royal College of Art Research Associate.