Hell is a High Rise Office Block

As my train drew into London last night it was dawdling on the empty track outside Paddington. Outside my window office blocks towered to every side, every floor lit and empty. The scene was almost gruesome - layer after layer of identical strip lit, double glazed, climate controlled expanses; row after row of small desks and big chairs stretched out one after the other. How extraordinary that this ethos has come to govern office architecture for so long. Although it was inevitable that at some point the drive to increase profit would lead to the principle of 'pile 'em high; sell 'em cheap' being applied to work spaces, that it would endure for so long is almost incomprehensible. It is not only amazing that talented workers would continue to apply for jobs in these kind of battery-farm conditions but that companies would disregard the obvious benefits of providing their employees with more stimulating surroundings. Illness, inefficiency and poor attention spans are only some of the miserable effects of these conditions, and yet they are subject to remarkable little public criticism let alone political attention. Even the bankers and lawyers of Canary Wharf appear to be more willing to put up with this architectural monotony than to insist on improvements at a fraction of a cost of their annual bonus.

I spent some time working for a large company in a large, bland, open plan office, I can remember how miserable it was having no variation in temperature, light quality or view and how difficult it was to focus in an open plan space. Perhaps it is the destruction of the unions that has led to this inability to claim a working environment that will actual help employees work? Perhaps our sensibility is too accustomed to experiencing illness, headaches and misery at work to expect anything different? Or possibly we just don't think architects can do better? The architects offer only a spineless kowtowing to the profiteering requirements of developers. No matter how spectacular the exterior might appear, no matter how grand the architect's name, neither developer nor designer appears to have given any thought to the experience (or efficiency) of the office block's users. The 'Gherkin' in London is a case in point - unusual looking, very recently built, and design by the much lauded and once-great designer of tedious, identikit office blocks Norman Foster, but hell to work in.