The argument
Writing as Head of Built Environment Engineering, he placed co-living and co-working within the wider idea of smart living. The term smart city, he observed, appears in almost every conversation about the changing built environment, yet its concrete realisation would require a cultural shift. Smarter living, he argued, requires a move from static to dynamic spaces, in which flexibility and a high degree of freedom become standard features of any habitable space.
Flexibility did not mean collapsing work into life. He insisted that a separation between the two should remain, while recognising that in a dynamic environment the overlap between work and life cannot be ignored and should be designed for rather than left to chance.
Smarter living, as a key attribute of forming a smart city, would necessitate a major transition from static to dynamic spaces.
ArchitectureNow, 12 November 2021
The caution
He also warned against easy enthusiasm. The pandemic had shown that spatial design must become more resilient and that designers must build the possibility of adaptation into their proposals. Social separation is a major side effect of remote work, and co-living and co-working can help to counter it.
Poorly designed co-working settings, however, can harm productivity. Before any shared office is endorsed, he argued, a thorough feasibility study should examine the tasks being done and the people doing them, from both design and practical viewpoints. The value of shared space depends on whether it fits the work.
The studio
The article drew on the final year design studio of the Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) in Architectural Engineering, where students designed mixed use community blocks on an Auckland city site and interpreted co-living and co-working in their own terms, exploring communal space, vertical connection, outdoor plazas and biophilic design. It showed the programme’s approach of linking design teaching to live questions in housing and work.
Looking back
Written in 2021, at the height of pandemic disruption, the article anticipated debates that have since become mainstream: the hybrid workplace, the role of shared amenity in medium density housing, and the social cost of remote work. Its insistence on feasibility studies before endorsing shared offices reads as prudent advice in the light of how many organisations have since struggled to make hybrid work function.
