Reimagining office buildings in a post-COVID-19 world

Jeffrey: We started work on The Spiral (a steel high-rise at New York City’s 66 Hudson Boulevard) before COVID. And as it turns out, a building with access to the outdoors, and a beautiful entry environment, is ideal for creating a workspace that people want to return to. It turned out to be the model post-COVID office building, even though it wasn’t planned to be. But now that we’re in a post-COVID environment, we can see what people request in real time. And my personal view is, we’re going to have people working from home for a long time, but not totally. Partially. Creating a more user-friendly office environment is critical to getting people back.

Carol: Office buildings were already being reimagined, and the pandemic may have accelerated it. So the trend before COVID was that there were more collaboration spaces, more breakout spaces. Then COVID hit and we didn’t work on any design of office buildings during COVID. And I think now those same trends will continue and will be even more important because employees are wanting to collaborate. The face-to-face collaboration is wonderful. There’s nothing better than walking over to a colleague and asking, ‘Hey, can we have your opinion?’ So, I love the collaboration aspect and think the trend of having more breakout spaces will be accelerated even further.

Jason: I think everyone’s in a bit of an experimentation stage right now. Many companies are embracing some form of hybrid work. That’s had an impact on the way they look at their office footprints. In some cases, they’re saying, we’re not going to need as much square footage in our overall portfolio of office space. So, let’s look at the right ways to trim back and keep the meaningful space. With one company we were working with recently, it was about teams gathered in the office, and many times after finishing a project they wanted to celebrate these milestones. And so they’re taking spaces in their building and looking at how you could use the office space or convert it into that kind of celebration space.

Carol: Being able to enjoy the views. More open spaces. And one of the reasons I come into the office is not just for collaboration but it’s also for socialization. I like my fellow workers. I want to see them. I want to hang out with them. And our office in Chicago’s financial district is right across the street from the Willis Tower (originally the Sears Tower). They just finished a renovation that started before COVID, and part of that is a roof terrace on the fourth floor that’s open to the public. And I look forward to going there, catching some sunrises, eating lunch with my coworkers, and hanging out there. It’s things like that where you can’t enjoy those amenities working from home.

Jason: Pre-pandemic, a lot of companies were starting to explore what it meant to create an activity-based work environment. And oftentimes associated with that philosophy comes what we call agile seating, meaning folks don’t have assigned seats. And I think, post-pandemic, that’s almost become more of a given because if you’re embracing hybrid work, and you assign people to desks, people end up being spread really far apart and it feels like no one’s in the office. And you show up and you’re like, gosh, no one’s here, and then you just want to go home again.

Jeffrey: Companies are making satellite offices, but not in a small city if your commute is only 15 minutes. But in New York, it’s a big deal because the traffic has gotten horrendous. The financial firms that I know are doing it. I live in New Jersey, and my daughter lives in New Jersey, she works for a financial firm. They opened a satellite office in New Jersey. That is a big deal. If they say they still want you in the office, visit the satellite office twice a week. And that’s where you dramatically save on commute time. It depends on the type of work and what the business does. But it’s part of this new trend. Now where it goes—and how far it will go—will be interesting.

Jeffrey: If you’re trying to make space more appealing, then you’re going to be removing pieces of floors, adding interconnecting stairs, making it a more inviting space. But in an alteration of an existing office building, it’s like dental work. Every old building is different. The structure’s different and the modifications are different.

Carol: The trend has been breakout spaces, and I think now that same trend will continue and will be more important because employees are coming in to collaborate. And probably beyond that, there’ll be upgrades such as more clean air circulation, air filtration systems, HVAC renovations. We work in a class C office building, which is very old. But even in our building, changes have been made to make everyone feel safe, such as more keyless entry, automated soap dispensers you activate by waving your hand. I think those little things are beneficial if you want employees to return to the office.

Jason: There’s a case study that I share with my clients sometimes about a remarkable difference in the number of people who want to come into the office and work together just by swapping out the technology with something a lot easier to use. Technology that’s more plug and play, more intuitive.

Jeffrey: If you have exterior terraces above an interior space, that means it has to be insulated properly in winter and summer. This has become a big deal. On a job I’m doing now, they want to use thermal breaks to separate heat and cold transmission from the exterior to the interior through the structure. All of these issues can be solved better, more efficiently, and more cost-effectively with a certain level of prefabricated steel. The beauty of steel is that you have the surface of the building to work on where you have laydown areas. There are a lot of ways to manipulate steel.

Carol: Where you see the benefits of high-strength steel is columns for more open spaces. You don’t need these massive columns coming through your space. Reducing the column sizes is hugely beneficial. And for trusses that support open spans, you can reduce the member sizes. High-strength steel definitely has a role in the future for high-rise offices. I’m sure it will be used more as offices become more vertical.

Jason: What’s wonderful about steel is that it can not only do bigger spans more easily, but it has some future flexibility built in. If you need to tap through the web of an I-beam, a wide flange beam, because you got a new duct, albeit a small duct, or you’ve got some technology you want to wire through, you could do that. If you even want to rearrange some columns, you can add some plates to strengthen the beam and shift things around if you need to.