December 2012

Re-designing Walls

by Jeannette Subero

Our human nature makes us seek shelter, find protection against the elements.

We attempt to control a space, to control its environment. We create comfort areas to

contain us and to contain our activities. We first did it through caves, then gradually, we

took those materials surrounding us and we went ahead and created artificial shelters or

containers, a manmade protection. The most primitive form of architecture is basically a

roof over our heads, and the other primitive element that came right after that, was

walls, a solution for vertical protection and partition. A wall "is a vertical structure,

usually solid, that defines and sometimes protects an area. Most commonly, a wall

delineates a building and supports its superstructure, separates space in buildings into

sections, or protects or delineates a space in the open air."[1]

There has been so many remarkable walls in the history of mankind. They have

been used to communicate, to tell stories, to divide cities, even countries, to make

political or religious statements, and so on and so forth. Some walls such as: The Great

Wall of China, Berlin Wall, Jerusalem's Old City walls, US-Mexico Border, Pink Floyd's

The Wall… are all great examples of how walls have played such an important role in

our history. So why question a primitive element such as a wall? It has worked over

thousands of years, protecting us, dividing us, containing us. Why would I in my right

mind question something that works so well? Something that, even though it has

changed its materiality, it has basically remained the same and has also retained its

identical primitive characteristics throughout the history of mankind? Well, it is very

simple, I will not. However, I will question the preposterous design of a type of modern

wall, the Office Partition Wall.

The first approach to adapt an interior space for basic human needs or activities,

and I am referring in this case to architects, is to first understand what needs to be

contained and what does not. It is very basic, but one of the first decisions to be made is

whether a wall is needed to divide a certain space or perhaps a wall or two must be

taken down. One of Le Corbusier's five points of Architecture is the open floor plan, also

known as the "free plan". It refers to the ability of having non-load bearing walls that

allow the creation of buildings without being limited by the placement of walls for

structural support, and has mainly enabled the architect to have the freedom to design

both the outside and inside façade without compromise. But then, the inevitable

question happened, why not move these non-load bearing walls around? Partition walls

became movable; they now have the ability to change, whether it is by sliding, folding,

or simply relocating them. They are also known as ‘Portable Partitions’ and "are used to

divide space quickly where non-mobile permanent room dividers may be unavailable or

impractical"[2]. Was this part of what Le Corbusier had in mind? I will reserve my

comments on that one, but anyway, a solution was made for a situation created by the

object itself, we needed walls, but non-load bearing brick walls were messy and

proposed permanent change, so we looked for more practical solutions that could easily

be changed over time.

The office partition wall is a variant of the movable partition wall, a non-load

bearing vertical divider structure. It was designed as a light element meant to contain

smaller, often individual, spaces within an open floor plan. It became very popular in the

70's and 80's, mainly because it was a fairly easy to install and it was not nearly as

expensive as modifying a space with brick walls and windows; it can be set up by fewer

people in far less time. Space-wise, it reduces the thickness of walls which makes the

spaces contained within slightly bigger. They can take further advantage of every extra

square centimeter. Partition walls are mass produced, they come in standardized sizes

that allow multiple possibilities of arranging a space. Perfectly measured cubicles that

perfectly fit and meet the minimum requirements for an individual office space, perhaps

following Ernrst Neufert's Architect's Data, to get the exact minimum "comfortable"

measures. Office wall partitions come in a variety of colors, materials and even shapes,

you can choose if you want solid color, glass, faux wood, wood, metal; if you want to

make them hermetic or permeable, you can. If you want them to reach the roof, or

halfway through, you can do that too. They can even be personalized with the

company's logo.

Office partition walls seemed to be a great solution for dividing spaces at that

time. They were the ideal solution within the budget for most companies. However,

there were so many consequences that were not well thought out when the partitions

were first designed. To start, there was the problem of the obstruction of natural light.

Many office buildings have this problem, which begins with the fact that there are not

enough windows (we can blame architects for that), but then, as the space is divided

into cubicles, the light is divided as well, creating a problem for which came another –

preposterous solution, fluorescent tube lights. Along with the obstruction of light, there is

also the obstruction of view, which creates a timeless environment, but not in a good

way. What I mean is that your body is not aware of the time change unless you look at

the clock, which is definitely not healthy. With partition walls came yet another problem,

communication. When you are in a cubicle you can only focus on yourself (which is not

always bad), and walls become obstacles when you need to get a message across from

a person who is not even 3 meters away from you. I will mention the aesthetics, not to

make it the main issue (even though I cannot stand the sight of it), but many companies

opted for the cheapest, and easiest to maintain: beige/gray melamine, which we can

say rapidly went out of style, but has unfortunately stayed for far too long. The last issue

I will bring up is the fact that these movable partition walls are hardly ever moved, if at

all, which clashes with the concept of staying away from brick walls due to their

permanency. I can ramble on and on about the extreme cases of office partitions, but if

you have ever been to a public or state office, you can easily get my point.

Now, as humans change the way they interact, they must also change their

spaces to fit these new ways. So this wall design became (or is rapidly becoming)

obsolete. It is still, however, used in many office spaces, most likely the vast majority of

them. They are an element that keeps getting redesigned, more so in terms of

construction materials to make them more appealing to the public and to try to move

away from the beige or gray idea of office partition walls. But. going back to Le

Corbusier's free-plan point, the open office plan has become the modern, more trendy

way of running an office; it is where most companies are, in fact, headed. Contemporary

offices are now leaning towards that concepts of open space, natural lighting, pleasant

aesthetics, optimized space usage, and honest space, a place where you are free to

share, where you cohabitate with others. The solution to the problem of dingy cubicle

office spaces was to eliminate the problems created in the first place. There are hardly

any divisions used nowadays, unless they are crucial or functional in terms of

separating a main office, a more private space, or meeting room, which really, is about

it. Updated office layouts seem to work well, especially for design related office

environments were the exchange of ideas is crucial. But, is this truly the solution? My

experience in working in an open office plan makes me think a slightly otherwise.

I started working at an architecture firm for my undergrad internship back in

Venezuela, the most Avant-Garde firm in my city. It was a renovated space from a

building of the 70's. Open floor plan, designer chairs, natural light, polished concrete,

white walls, bold colors, and not many partitions. My first impression was that it looked

like a magazine, and I was excited to be part of that space. Memories of this place are

nostalgic, but long story short, I realized that even though cubicles had been eliminated,

people still need time to seclude themselves, they create their own intangible cubicle, a

zone where they were not to be disturbed for a period of time. I will refer to it as the iPod

sphere. They wear headphones as if they create an invisible force field that protects

them from outside, an intangible and invisible cubicle.

Bruno Latour in ‘Spheres and Networks’ poses the question "why has the world

been made uninhabitable in the first place? More precisely, why has it not been

conceived as if the question of its habitability was the only question worth asking? I am

more and more convinced that the answer lies in this extremely short formula: lack of

space. Paradoxically, the whole enterprise around spheres and networks is in effect a

search for space, for a vastly more comfortably inhabitable space"[3]. Scaling this to the

work place, we are in a constant search for space, and the iPod sphere is a solution that

was created for one of the problems of open office plans, the need for seclusion, to

escape the noise, or even co-workers. The first thing I noticed when I started school this

year, was the open floor plan for D12, with great natural illumination and many places to

work. I immediately noticed the iPod spheres. Personally, I am not capable of working in

noisy environments, so I go to my iPod sphere, and even then it gets rather difficult

sometimes to concentrate with all the activities going around me. Sure it has great

advantages. For example, if I am facing a problem with a certain code or program, there

is most likely someone there who knows how to help me better than if I were to resort to

using Google at home searching for an answer. But I find that my most productive time

is when I am in a space alone or with just a couple of people, it is just a personal

preference, there are many others that are perfectly fine working in busy environments,

even without the aid of headphones.

I have concluded thus far that office wall partitions, more specifically cubicles,

have brought many problems to the work environment, yet the majority of offices still

use them. I have also concluded that an open office space may not suit everybody at all

times. Branching off of this last point, I can say that a temporary layout is a key issue in

the matter of contemporary office space usage. We do different activities at different

times, we even multitask. We have so many different needs, but the spaces remain the

same, perhaps a piece of furniture moved here and there, but the spatial quality hardly

changes. We are forced to adapt our activities to fit the shape of the space. Activity

follows form. But what if we could think otherwise? Form follows activity, or maybe even

a symbiotic relationship between the two. So how do I combine all these different

situations that part from the office partition walls to the open office plan? The good, the

bad and the ugly?

I propose a movable and adaptable modular system to create, change, and

transform indoor spaces. Lightweight modular pieces that are easy to move and require

no specialized installation. A sort of ‘do-it-yourself indoor space generator.’ The first

thing that came to my mind was if this truly is different from the common office partition

walls? And the answer may seem disappointing at first, because it really is not that

different, it is just a redesign of the highly criticized piece. Immediately I thought, well,

what will be so innovative about this re-design then? And the truth is… the piece by

itself will not be innovative, just because you add a few gadgets, does not make it really

innovative. However, what I will do, is take from the very same concepts that were used

to design the movable partitions in the first place and in fact comply these concepts.

The piece itself will not be the innovation, the way we will use these pieces together, is

where the innovation will happen. I will adapt these concepts to the way we now

function in office, or, in other words, work places.

The first element will be Adaptation. Office partition walls were meant to be

elements that could easily be modified, but in reality they are not used in that way. To

approach this, I will begin with modularity. Shapes that fit together (still maintaining the

original concept from the office partition walls), shapes that are manageable enough for

one person to move them around without help. This first approach significantly changes

the way we feel indoor spaces, not just as the person or persons contained within that

smaller space but for the people that surround it. Imagine a space that is constantly

changing, the number of elements or pieces are the same, but it becomes a shape

shifting environment that continuously adapts to our needs in any given time. A work

event like meetings do not occur every hour or every day, so a meeting room could be a

space that is assembled just for the time of the meeting, and that it can be dissembled

when it ends, as the space is no longer needed.

The second element will be Diversification, more like a ramification from the first.

Modules are the modern idea that everything fits with perfect measurements, but the

problem with that is that our needs are not always perfectly measured. Therefore, we

need adaptability, and to achieve that with modules, we need different types. Not just

change of sizes or shapes, but also differences in behavior. This will allow for more

possibilities of creating spaces than just using the modules as plain partitions. One of

the ideas I have is to create modules that allow us to create furniture with them, so we

no longer have a just a vertical partition piece that can be translated but that it can also

be rotated or even flipped.

The third element will be Responsiveness. For machinery this concept applies to

the ability of systems to adjust quickly to altered external conditions and to resume

stable operation[4]. For the modules, this will mean responsive and interactive surfaces.

The interaction will occur with passersby and even with the surroundings. For example,

in responsive panels in architecture, the surfaces shift their translucency in order to

allow more daylight to go through them or on the contrary, to avoid direct sun light.

These elements combined are basically the essence of the new office partition I

am proposing, as a change from both the old ways and the newer, yet still imperfect,

ways. It is the common ground between the two. Changeable spaces for changeable

activities. This idea reminds me of when kids build forts with cushions and sheets, and it

may be naïve, but that playfulness is something that we tend to lose when we grow

older. The capacity of creating, feeling and interacting in a completely different way with

the space by just moving a couple of cushions. To bring back the childhood gesture of

creating your own space with these modular pieces could be an incentive for adults to

unlock their creativity.

One of the consequences of this modular wall design will be that it will change

the way we interact with space, it will make us protagonists and active participants of

the space. It will generate new ways of interaction between people and objects. We will

shape it as we please. Time will gain a new feel, as spaces will change throughout the

days or even the hours. It would be a really appealing concept to try for bold offices.

People will come up with completely new ways of rearranging the pieces, making infinite

possibilities, things that were not even remotely thought of with the bland concept of

cubicle design. It will most likely be used for other activities that were not planned.

This modular wall system seems like a great idea, the solution for the current

needs, the solution for the new way of cohabiting in a work place, but, if I think it

through, and consider all the scenarios, I can certainly predict it will probably go out of

style quite quickly. I am not talking just about the shape, but about its behavior as well, it

will constantly have to be redesigned to adapt to new needs that did not exist

previously. We are constantly creating new objects, or we are getting rid of old objects,

perhaps not in a not too distant future we may not need so many physical supplies in

the office space, so furniture will change, and the space will need to adapt to this. The

modular pieces will have to be rethought, redesigned, and re-implemented. Another

downside is that people will probably get over the idea of adapting a space, perhaps

they will get tired of constantly having to move things around, and then they will most

likely go back to adapting their activities to the existing spaces, as it requires less

apparent physical effort.

What does the future of work space hold for us? I believe this can be a broader

question and we can focus it about our relationship with space. Going back to Latour,

he says: "There is probably no more decisive difference among thinkers than the

position they are inclined to take on space: Is space what inside which reside objects

and subjects? Or is space one of the many connections made by objects and subjects?"

I certainly stand with the latter, but before we make any conclusions on how an object

such as the new design of the office partition wall can change the future of work space,

we have to fully understand our current interaction with space and how we are

constantly changing it, when we get to that point, then we might be able to redesign

space.-

References

[1] Wall definition

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall

[2] Portable Partition definition

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_partitions

[3] Bruno Latour "Spheres and Networks: Two Ways To Reinterpret Globalization"

Harvard University Graduate School of Design

February 2009

http://www.bruno-latour.fr/sites/default/files/115-SPACE-HARVARD-GB.pdf

[4] Responsiveness definition

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/responsiveness