Essay | Compact Office Spaces

The Covid times brought into sharp focus the nature of ‘work’, work methods and works spaces. Organisations around the world started re-evaluating some well established and well accepted norms around the nature of a workplace and the need for one. The concept of remote working gained wider currency and the idea of a decentralised workforce became acceptable.

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work from home mode from the Covid times.

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work from home mode from the Covid times.

The post Covid time has seen the world return to its ‘old’ normal and has allowed us to re-evaluate some of the assumptions made about the workplace during covid times. While some companies and organisations have shown reluctance towards large office spaces and moved to a hybrid & decentralised way of conducting business, the workspace has proven to be indispensable. Studies and research in the sector suggest that the workspace is an essential platform for fostering collaboration, interactions, and exchange of ideas – essential ingredients for any growing economy. A dedicated workspace, separate from the home also helps rebalance the distortions in the work & personal space from the Covid times. It also is an enabler in forging interpersonal bonds and imbibing a shared sense of culture and identity within organisations.

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Grade A Office spaces in a Commercial District

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Grade A Office spaces in a Commercial District

The current market is largely made up of large or medium sized offices spaces which cater to organisations of a particular scale and reach. Options for small businesses and entrepreneurs are few and they end up relying on co-working formats or the proverbial industrial galas and shops. While these formats can provide the right amount of space at roughly the right amount of price, the aspirational element remains largely unanswered. The segment is largely untapped and underprovided. This is where the idea of a compact office format takes root.

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A typical Industrial Park in Mumbai

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A typical Industrial Park in Mumbai

At KA, we have been involved in the development of this workspace format with Lodha Developers wherein considerations of affordability have been balanced with aspirations of a Grade A workspace. These offices cater to small businesses with a lean workforce and reduced need for real estate. The key challenge in such spaces is in achieving a degree of scale and density to improve the affordability index while mitigating the impacts of this increased density and scale to impart a sense of being an upscale business address.

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A Compact Office (artists impression)

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A Compact Office (artists impression)

Workspaces in such a development are largely in the range of 250sft. – 650sft and need to be organised in an efficient grid to provide optimum efficiency on a floor plate. It is critical that enough attention is paid to the treatment of the ground plane. As is the case in any publicly oriented building, the ground plane in this case too, is the point of activation. Providing retail with a mix of F&B energises the ground plane and is also a source of respite for the office spaces above. The resulting retail plaza on the ground also allows the building to respond more sensitively to the street and the neighbourhood at large. A symbiotic existence of the retail and workspace program creates a potential for the building to become a marker at the urban scale.

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Retail spaces at the base of the office building (artists impression)

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Retail spaces at the base of the office building (artists impression)

The arrival into the building is another vital area which requires close attention. An appropriately sized and clearly defined entrance lobby which is naturally light and well ventilated, not only helps in clearly orienting the building, but it also goes a long way in the quest for creating an upscale experience to these workspaces.

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Retail plaza along the street (artists impression)

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Retail plaza along the street (artists impression)

The scale of the office space allows us to move away from the conventional methods of draping such buildings with a glass exterior. There is a possibility to reduce the wall-to-window ratios and provide the offices with operable windows which can result in lower dependence on air-conditioning during certain months of the year and make the building more environmentally responsible.

Like every adversity, from Covid too arose and opportunity to re-assess and re-imagine the workspace. While this compact office format does not fundamentally alter the definition of the workspace, it certainly has led us to pay more attention to the need of smaller affordable spaces for small businesses and enterprises which currently existed alongside industrial galas and neighbourhood retail or within apartment buildings. A formal organisation of such small format workspaces alongside retail and F&B outlets has a potential to re-vitalise neighbourhoods and lead to a decentralised business district and a more vibrant city.

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Entrance lobby of Grade A office building – Lodha Excellus

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Entrance lobby of Grade A office building – Lodha Excellus