Thirty years ago, the personal computer as we know it, was a fledgling child. My first computer, bought 33 years ago was state of the art, a Sharp, with a floppy disk – just one, no hard drive and about 64 kilobytes of RAM. When I bought that computer, the salesperson told me I would never, NEVER, need any more than this. It was 1983, Apple was an upstart, Windows hadn’t been invented yet, and it cost $6,000.

You can probably imagine what level of computing power $6,000 would buy you today. The difference now is that we know we will always need more.

So, thirty years from now, in the opposite direction. Looking forward. What will technology look like then. What will office space look like then. Will the workplace look different? Will our work practices be different?

Will I still be riding my bike to work, or will my autonomous vehicle call by, pick me up and drop me off, before going back home to vacuum the house? Perhaps my autonomous vehicle will collapse its physicality, fold itself up, hop in my pocket and wait patiently until I’m ready to go home and vacuum the house myself. Okay, that’s a bit far-fetched. I don’t vacuum now; I’m hardly likely to take up the practice anytime soon.

But back to the workplace. To my workplace. As architects, we have many tools available now with which to demonstrate and present our designs. Beyond the simple drawing of lines to represent the elements that go into the construction of a building, beyond a pretty picture to portray the intended edifice, within the design process we build a digital model. We test it, tease it, tweak it till we’re happy, then apply some fancy digital brushwork, and take you for a walk around your new building. We can let you don some virtual reality headwear so that you can experience the building from the inside, look around, up and down, before a single sod has been split. That’s now.

In thirty years from now, how far will virtual reality take us. Perhaps when we don our VR headwear, we will not only see the space from within and without, but we’ll be able to touch it, feel it, smell it, taste it, as well. When we virtually walk around, we will truly experience the space with all our senses. It will be a wonderful testing ground for how a building will work.

Of course, that’s just the sexy stuff. A builder can’t actually build an actual building with pretty pictures, no matter how realistic. That’s now. Now, a builder needs construction documents that describes just where every single element goes, what connects to what, materials, products, dimensions and details. NOW, this is usually on sheets of A1 paper; many sheets of A1 paper. Or on an iPad or tablet for portability and easy access. But the real deal is still mostly on A1 sheets of paper. Will the so-called paperless office ever become a reality – is thirty more years enough for that to happen?

In thirty years, perhaps construction documents will be on a screen that rolls up for portability, or folds itself up and parks itself in your pocket next to your car. Or pops off to do the vacuuming.

Or, perhaps the screen will not be an actual screen; but a virtual screen. Really, just an image that is projected onto a wall or a window or onto a spread of thin air.

In thirty years, perhaps we won’t need actual construction documents because we’ll simply upload the design documents into a 3d printer which will print our buildings on site, no problem. Today, we can do that, to a point – for a few years now, we’ve had the capability of printing full scale, useable, actual walls on or off-site. In thirty years, there is a fair chance of that being extended to printing the services that go into the buildings as well. To create the whole building and decorate it to boot.

Perhaps the next generation of VR headwear will allow us to not only experience virtual reality, but will read our thoughts in some way so that our design, via our brain waves, those electrical impulses charging along their neural pathways, can then be transferred via a brain computer interface to somebody else. Think about it. We think something up, and somebody else can experience what we’re thinking for themselves. All without a word being uttered.

Maybe those construction details will be absorbed into the building contractor’s brain, and disseminated the same way to others.

Or, perhaps a brain computer interface will allow us to think up a building – literally. We’ll think it up, the thoughts will be transferred to a 3d printer and the 3d printer will print the building.

And back to the catalyst of all this musing. The question, what will the work place look like in 30 years. If indeed we are thinking our designs to one another, generating buildings through brain computer interfaces, then the office work place will just need a comfy chair and a nice view. And a coffee machine.

The possibilities are endless and exciting. Do I really think that thought transference from one person to another with physical construction resulting directly from those thought processes is possible? Not necessarily, although I won’t discount it.

It’s really just been an interesting thought exercise.

The Workplace

Inspired by a design competition that asked, "what will the workplace look like in thirty years". 2017