2023-09-25 06:00:19
Office slang SIMON LANDREIN
Nobody had thought about it: what if buying a tatami office was the solution to work better? Be careful, don’t see this as an opportunity to discreetly place an uchi-mata on your boss. It is rather a matter of “transform workspaces into a convivial experience”with this office furniture at ground level.
Perhaps this innovation is part of the millionth “trend” hitting office real estate: “residential design”. This difficult-to-decipher portmanteau is the contraction of “residential” and “commercial”. It appeared in American design magazines in 2017. If you’ve never heard of it, it’s precisely because it remained well hidden among designers.
“Since Covid, designers have been forced to reinvent their discourse, and consultants have been inventing words. We always have the impression that a new pseudo-concept will produce an effect that we know in advance”, deplores Nicolas Cochard, R&D director of the building and real estate consulting firm Kardham. This is exactly the case here: for many HR managers, it was necessary to bring employees back to the office.
The employee is a customer
There was already “hospitality management”, which for around twenty years has consisted of applying hotel codes to work spaces. The employee is a customer, who must be persuaded to come: but you cannot persuade anyone with gray and impersonal offices.
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In addition to the service, the “resimercial” is about feeling at home. That is to say sitting awkwardly on a sofa, with the noise of neighbors and construction, on a laptop? No, it’s about reproducing the comfort of a cozy nest.
If we are to believe the consultants who are trying to push this “trend”, this is illustrated by the diversification of places in the office: a kitchenette for lunch, a lounge for chatting, an outdoor space for getting some fresh air. And, of course, the nap room, which sends a “cool” signal. Everything is cozy, with carpets, endless plants, and warm-colored beanbags (yellow, red)… But why were ergonomic seats invented, then?
A massive return of employees
As in a house, there are intimate spaces and spaces for discussion: if we return to the office to find discussion and informality, we must provide flexible spaces to adapt these exchanges. On the 37th floor of the ALTO tower in La Défense, the office design company Comet has created a “unexpected oasis”, which includes convivial spaces, and in particular a place reserved for playing video games. The legend says that employees saw their productivity drop by 70%, and that (especially) some of its employees joined the world rankings on FIFA.
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#resicommercial #design #homemade #office