Designing the Office of the Future: Building Serendipity

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The Wall Street Journal

Technology

4.4 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 13 May 2022

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The pandemic has changed the way we work and where we work. Now, as companies try to coax their employees back to the office, they are encountering new demands and shifting expectations. In this episode, we bring you a conversation from WSJ’s CEO Council Summit between world-renowned designer Thomas Heatherwick, who has spearheaded huge office complexes including Google’s new Charleston East headquarters in California, and London Business School professor Lynda Gratton, who studies how people and organizations interact. They detail why office spaces must be flexible, but also encourage “serendipity” to facilitate vibrant and productive work. 2022 WSJ CEO Council Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:00.0	Welcome aboard this Air France podcast message. Air France and its crew invite you to discover
0:09.4	its business class cabin, where you can enjoy a full flatbed. For even more comfort, an
0:16.0	ultra soft duvet and pillow are at your disposal. Air France wishes you a pleasant podcast.
0:23.4	Air France, book your business class tickets now at france.co.uk
0:34.4	Two years after the pandemic sent everyone home, the office is slowly but surely making
0:39.0	a comeback. But after spending years working remotely, employees and employers are realizing
0:45.4	we cannot go back to business as usual.
0:51.4	From the Wall Street Journal, this is the future of everything. I'm Caitlin Nicholas. In
0:56.0	this episode, we're bringing you a conversation from the WSJ CEO Council Summit about just
1:02.1	what role the office should play in our lives now. From the changing expectations of employees
1:07.5	to the new demands from employers, what will it take to create a vibrant and productive
1:12.0	working environment? And we're hearing answers to that question from two people who've
1:16.4	been thinking a lot about the future of the office. Thomas Heatherwick is the founder
1:21.1	of Heatherwick Studio. He and his firm have spearheaded big public projects around the
1:25.6	world, including the Vessel and Little Island in New York City, and designed huge office
1:31.0	complexes, like Google's new Charleston East headquarters in California. And Linda
1:36.7	Gratton is a professor of management practice at the London Business School. She studies
1:41.3	how people and organizations interact and says there are a lot of myths about the before
1:45.7	times. So the idea that before the pandemic, we spent all our time wandering around having
1:51.9	water cooler conversations. That actually, in most cases, was not the case. We now need
1:57.0	to go back and say, how do we build serendipity? That's coming up after the break.
2:07.8	Mailchimp would like to talk to you about customers. A customer is what happens when marketers
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