- Interview with Argent’s Nick Searl
- Leaving a mark
- Interview with Chinachem’s Donald Choi
- Interview with Lendlease’s Natalie Slessor
- Make models: 20 Ropemaker Street, part 2
- Balance
- The value of the drawing
- Museum for Architectural Drawing, Berlin
- Interview with Brookfield Properties’ Stuart Harman
- Draw to Make
- Music and the workplace
- Betts Project
- Wellbeing and the workplace
- Interview with Lendlease’s Kevin Chapman
- Interview with Brookfield Properties’ Peter Clarke
- An update from Sydney
- Combatting loneliness in the built environment
- Make models: 20 Ropemaker Street, part 3
- Sydney born and razed
- Make models: 20 Ropemaker Street, part 1
- The smart workplace
- Interview with General Projects’ Jacob Loftus
- Make’s past, present and future
- The Architecture Drawing Prize – Not just another competition
- My time with the BCO
- The call of the wild
- Long live the office
- The art of an art historian
- Mary, queen of hotels
- Make models: Portsoken Pavilion
- The Make Charter
- Make models: LSQ London
- Disappearing Here – On perspective and other kinds of space
- Why Brexit will see a glass half-full emptied
- Drawing and thinking
- Make models: Grosvenor Waterside
- The Hollow Man: poetry of drawing
- Above and beyond
- Making shops exciting again: Lessons from the Nordics (part 1)
- Making shops exciting again: Lessons from the Nordics (part 2)
- Plein air in the digital age
- A “Plan in Impossible Perspective”
- Making shops exciting again: Lessons from the Nordics (part 3)
- The future of bespoke HQs
- World-class architecture
- Make models: The Luna
- Drawing architecture
- The future is bright but not the same
- Art Editor’s picks
- Employee ownership
- The tools of drawing
- Trecento re-enactment
- The Architecture Drawing Prize exhibition review
- Lessons on future office design from Asia Pacific
- The human office
- How drawing made architecture
- Advocating sustainable facade design
- Make models: FC Barcelona’s Nou Palau Blaugrana
- Drawing as an architect’s tool
- Are you VReady?
- Cycle design for the workplace
- The Architecture Drawing Prize
- Make models: an urban rail station
- Reporting from Berlin
- City-making and Sadiq
- Hand-drawing, the digital (and the archive)
- Ken Shuttleworth on drawing
- The green tiger
- Stefan Davidovici – green Mars architect
- When drawing becomes architecture
- Make models: Swindon Museum and Art Gallery
- The role of the concept sketch
- Make calls for a cultural shift in industry’s approach to fire safety
- 2036: A floor space odyssey
- Harold on tour
- London refocused
- Hotels by Make
- Full court press
- Digital Danube
- Don’t take a pop at POPS
- The future of architecture – Matthew Bugg
- The future of architecture – Jet Chu
- The future of architecture – Robert Lunn
- The future of architecture – David Patterson
- The future of architecture – Rebecca Woffenden
- The future of architecture – Katy Ghahremani
- Safer streets for all
- The importance of post-occupancy evaluation for our future built environment
- Put a lid on it
- Designing for a liveable city
- The future of architecture – Bill Webb
- Bricks – not just for house builders
- Designing in the City of Westminster
- Rolled gold
- How to make a fine suit
- Responsible sourcing starts with design
- Is off-site manufacture the answer?
- Developing a design for the facade of 7-10 Hanover Square
- Curious Sir Christopher Wren
- Responsible resourcing should be an integral part of every project
- The socio-economic value of people-focused cities
We discuss… The local community, what cities can learn from Hong Kong and what Hong Kong can learn from other cities.
JACK SALLABANK: How has office design changed in Hong Kong?
DONALD CHOI: We have seen a lot of change in office design. Office is no longer about just being a corporate office; it is now about catering for a work-life balance. Even in more traditional sectors such as banking, we are now seeing a more entrepreneurial mindset, with companies recruiting for an innovative and creative workforce. That all translates into an environment that is less uniform and less corporate.
JS: Are there any trends that you think are specific to Hong Kong?
DC: In Hong Kong the workplace is very much mixed in with the daily life of the community. It’s not only about working in an office but how that office is integrated into the public realm around it. For example, meetings are not just in the meeting rooms; we hold a lot of walking meetings and out-of-office meetings in a more informal setting. In Hong Kong we are seeing a lot of changes with how work and life are merging together.
JS: You deliver office, hotels and residential developments – does that make it easier for you to respond to these changes?
DC: I think it does. We have a lot of insight into the consumer behaviour of the community.
JS: Are we getting better at designing offices for people?
DC: Consultants are studying a lot of data around the workplace environment, and this isn’t just related to the layout of space. They are looking at colour, air, sunlight etc. These factors all become part of the design language, which is an important part of creating wellness and people-centric design.
JS: What can other cities learn from workplace design in Hong Kong?
DC: I think we have something to offer in terms of efficiency and how we manage to develop in a very compact city. Hong Kong also has a very resilient workplace, with innovative flexibility that facilitates collaboration.
JS: What can Hong Kong learn from other cities?
DC: We don’t have the green spaces that you do in London, so we can do more to bring green into our city.
JS: What will we see in the next ten years of workplace design?
DC: We will continue to see the blurring of boundaries between office, living, leisure and entertainment. Also I think in the future, because of technology, location will become less important in the traditional sense.
This post was extracted from Exchange, Make’s new thought leadership series which explores some of the challenges and trends that the property industry is encountering. Issue No. 1 in the series looks at the workplace and is available to read and download.
