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The modern economy depends increasingly on knowledge workers - that is, those who create, distribute or apply knowledge. New workers, who introduce a new way of working. The physical locus of this new mode of immaterial production is the office, the space where approximately 40% of the work force spends its time, even 50-60% according to some sources.
Three studies, presented on the occasion of "Ufficio Fabbrica Creativa. The Italian Way!", focus on the theme of the office: the ISPO study for Cosmit interviewed 500 workers about their opinions on work space; the Diomedea study for Assufficio investigated the relationship between investment in work space and productivity in a sample group of companies; the DEGW study analyzed the trends in office space design at the international level and offers several key factors that will influence office design of the future.
Despite its growing importance, it seems that the office has not yet acquired the ‘dignity’ of a place of production such as is ascribed to the factory. Designing a factory is invariably the result of a lengthy process, carefully planned and attentive to all aspects of production, logistics and communication. It is understood that a flawed, non-functional design will entail greater costs and lower competitiveness.
Yet when designing office space, companies do not dedicate that same degree of care: it’s almost as though they pay more attention to machines than to people. Today, the office is the main site of economic production, but it must come to terms with the idea that what can be done in an office can be done anywhere. Thus, when a company builds its own office, it often does so casually, without really considering
the impact that certain decisions will have on the company.
Attention to how an office is designed is therefore not only an esthetic issue, but an important aspect of company strategy. When designing office space, the well-being of the worker should be just as important as productive efficiency, yet despite the fact that multiple studies confirm the centrality of office space, the design and installation of these spaces are often the result of ‘casual’ choices.
What emerges as central is the idea that the office is not just a place where people gather to produce. It is a space where values, meanings, visions are exchanged. A job offers not only the opportunity for income but also the chance for self-realization, the affirmation of one’s abilities. If a job does not enrich one culturally and emotionally, it is difficult to be innovators. The relationship with space is therefore complex: it is not just a space where one finds technology and services unavailable elsewhere, it is more a symbolic place than a physical one, it is the place where the company identifies itself and the worker identifies company values.
The three surveys thus converged on one point: the office, though its role is changing, will continue to be central to company strategies and central for the worker. One might wonder, rather, whether there is an Italian way of perceiving the office, whether Italian design and Italian-made furnishings may also express a vision of their own in the office world.
In this view, the office is transformed into a ‘piazza’, a town square where people meet and communicate and learn. The challenge is therefore this: reconcile the respective individualities of knowledge workers within an organization that functions effectively by recuperating the idea with which economists have described the functioning of industrial districts, which is competitive collaboration that does not distinguish between work relationships and private ones, but that is able to utilize the potential of both

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