The office is no longer a container.
- Mar 20
- 2 min read
Updated: Apr 2
Offices have been around for a long time - just how long? Take your pick from the taberna lining early Roman streets, monks, clerics, bankers on their bancos, Saint Augustine (pictured below) in what appears to be an early office cubicle with rudimentary sound-proofing, the specialist subject coffee houses of 17th century London (the genesis of the office), the Larkin Administrative Building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1903, arguably the first modern office, Burolandschaft and onward to today's cornucopia of arrangements.
Whenever your chosen starting point, offices, and their design, have been a constant work in progress, but there are few points in time when questions around design and use of these spaces has been more elevated.
To help investors understand these changing dynamics we have chosen three pieces of recent work relevant to the discussion. The first from Gensler, a 6,000 strong team of design professionals, who have drawn on the "input of over 120,000 survey respondents over the past two decades" to create their Work Place survey series. The 2026 edition (and associated blog reports), which surveyed 16,000 respondents in 16 countries, was recently released and asks:
Will AI make the workplace more human?
"As routine tasks are automated, workers may be freed to spend more time on big-picture thinking and deeper conversations with their coworkers. Our findings bear that out, revealing that employees who embrace AI spend less time working alone and more time in other work behaviors, learning in particular.
Although many people expected AI to decrease our reliance on one another, these workers typically have stronger relationships with their teammates, not weaker ones. If that trend continues, the physical workplace is likely to become even more important. Environments that foster connection, learning, and experimentation will bolster the trust that fuels collaboration, critical thinking, and imagination — things that AI cannot replicate. AI is changing work."
The second piece of research comes from Work Design, an industry platform which seeks to bring together "insights from anthropologists, neuroscientists, futurists, workplace strategists, CRE leaders, designers, technologists, and operators; voices that rarely sit in the same room but are all witnessing the same transformation from different vantage points."
Their State of the Workplace 2026 report concludes "The office is no longer a container. It is a catalyst for human performance, learning, innovation, and connection."
And finally, industry commentator Maxime Cousin (Osol) summarises his key takeaways from the Work Place Design Show held recently in London. The show brings together designers, product suppliers and their clients from around the globe to discuss the latest design trends. Maxime's report "What London Tells Us About The Office Of Tomorrow" highlights key points from some of the 140 expert speakers who attended the event.
We have provided these reports to help highlight risk in office assets, in particular because of the considerable debate and uncertainty around the impact AI might have on demand for floorspace. The research is necessarily sourced from overseas markets because, like selvedge denim from Japan, or pop music from Korea, many trends do tend to start in these more developed markets, and we need to look at what's coming, not what's here ...
Your suggestions and feedback are always welcome!
