Jessica Broad

Can the workplace be the glue of the social milieu? Can it combat social fragmentation and be the node that restores our meaningful relationships?

The 2030 workplace will be a space that actively counteracts the issue of social fragmentation. The densification and cellularisation of our lives in cities coupled with longer working hours afforded by the digital age means we spend more time than ever at work (Bloomberg, 2020). This leaves an overwhelmed, overstretched working population that struggles to find the time to maintain rigid social connections (Schulte, B. (2014). Node accommodates integrated formal and informal spaces that can be utilised by staff after hours to pursue personal activities and interests with their individual community, affording them temporary ownership of otherwise inaccessible facilities in the dense, adaptations of modern dwelling. Enveloped by a familiar enclosure, like the home it forms the boundary that mediates our internal and external identities, our lives captured through the glimpses of passerby. Node provides a space to foster meaningful connections that are currently at risk of being lost to the modes of working and living produced by city lifestyles in the digital age.