What’s Your Office Going to Look Like When Things Return to ‘Normal’? Here’s a Primer.
Changes in office culture when we return post pandemic.
By Daniel J. Sernovitz
Perkins & Will was gearing up for its big move. The architecture firm had already secured its permits for the interior buildout of its new D.C. office space. It had scheduled the necessary “purge days” for employees to get rid of excess papers and accumulated knickknacks they wouldn’t need to take with them. It had even built in a bit of a cushion ahead of a July lease expiration to move the last remaining items from its current office.
This relocation was going to be a chance for Perkins & Will to practice what it preaches, so to speak, to showcase best practices and test out design concepts it may recommend to clients in the future.
And that’s when the coronavirus outbreak hit.
Suddenly, that smooth transition to 1222 22nd St. NW, a former Secret Service garage converted into a boutique office a few blocks away on the District’s West End, turned into a real-time experiment in how to adjust to an alternate work universe amid Covid-19-inspired stay-at-home and social distancing measures.
