re-designing walls
DESCRIPTION
Essay on re-thinking and re-designing the concept of a wallTRANSCRIPT
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