The workplace has changed more in the last five years than in the previous two decades, not because of design trends, but because attendance itself has become optional. For decades, the success of a corporate workplace was measured by efficiency: How many desks could fit on a floor plate and how little time was spent away from it. But the past few years have challenged that logic. Attendance is no longer compulsory, and the office must now justify itself not through policy, but through experience.
For Woods Bagot Principal and Global Leader of Workplace ID, Kirsti Simpson, this shift has fundamentally altered the way workplace architecture is approached.
“We are no longer considering the metrics of square meterage per person as the primary indicator of success,” she says. “We are now pre-occupied by the metrics around experience, belonging, connection and joy.”
This shift from density to experience reflects a broader cultural shift. Hybrid working has given people choice, and with choice comes expectation. To attract workers to the workplace and keep them there, architecture must offer them something must experience. There must be a programmatic overlay contemplated.
“If we really think about what makes a workplace meaningful, sticky or magnetic, it is around the idea that there is a sense of belonging when you are at work,” Simpson explains. “It is about feeling connected to people, accepted and valued, and being drawn to an environment that brings people together.”
But how do you design belonging into a space? And how do you measure it? Woods Bagot has investigated the idea of belonging and measures it through several tools, including observable behaviour. Things like longevity in the workplace, patterns of attendance, places and spaces that connect and capture dwell time, the way people move through space, and how collaborative environments are used all become indicators of success.
“When we see collaborative spaces being embraced, for example, we know the space is becoming more effective in that it becomes a device in support of innovation and cultural connection,” Simpson says. “That ultimately creates a more enjoyable experience and a greater immersion in a broader business strategy.”
This thinking extends beyond the workplace interior. Woods Bagot approaches the workplace as part of a broader ecosystem, where base buildings, precincts and public amenity play an important role in shaping the life of our cities.
“We are not just focused on the space that our clients occupy,” Simpson says. “We are very focused on the base building proposition and the broader ecosystem that surrounds it.”
Outdoor working spaces are integrated at 80 Ann Street.
This has led to a new level of competition between buildings, not on size or prestige, but on amenity, adaptability and atmosphere. Wellness facilities now extend far beyond traditional end-of-trip offerings (which often only included showers and a bike lock-up). Auditoriums, hospitality-style lobbies, quality food outlets, gyms, saunas, cold-plunge therapy, and curated programming are becoming central to the identity of commercial buildings.
One project with this approach is 80 Ann Street in Brisbane, where Woods Bagot’s studio is located. The building integrates a hotel-like lobby, multiple food outlets, naturally ventilated spaces, gym, events spaces, and a highly curated ground plane that draws people in from across the precinct. Studies show that more than half of the people using its elevated lobby are not tenants, underscoring its role as a civic rather than purely commercial space.
“It becomes magnetic, not just for the tenants in the building, but for the broader precinct,” Simpson says. “Providing all of these experiences creates a place that people genuinely want to be part of.”
The building also addresses a less discussed challenge in workplace design: habituation. This is the tendency for the uplift or ‘newness’ of a space to fade over time. Through changing digital artworks, and weekly programming (such as performers in the lobby), the building resists stasis.
“The idea that a space can change over time maintains a currency of interaction,” Simpson says. “That helps sustain productivity and engagement rather than allowing it to plateau.”
The Major Resources Company office fitout by Woods Bagot creates a sense of comfort through soft, earthy colours, textiles and planting.
The importance of designing for place
Underlying all of this is a strong commitment to place. Despite operating globally, Woods Bagot resists consistent solutions. Each project is shaped by its cultural, strategic, sectoral, climatic and urban context.
“It would be irresponsible to assume that a project could happen anywhere without being deeply representative of place,” Simpson says.
This sensitivity to context extends to sustainability and longevity. Rather than designing spaces for a single, accordant use, Woods Bagot is increasingly focused on flexibility and elasticity. For example, the notion that a place is pre-disposed for change, could see corporate workplaces that can evolve without waste as central to an approach that anticipates change rather than resisting it.
At its core, this approach reframes commercial architecture as an act of place-making.
“There is a massive responsibility to create places that have meaning, support community and withstand change. The importance of the role that we, as workplace specialists, play in the creation and transformation of cities is not something we can underestimate.”
