WORKING WHILE WALKING
It is rightful to believe in philosophy; and philosophy was born while people were walking.
Living, working, producing, discussing, deciding and evolving only makes sense if you know where you are going. You also need to know that your destination is worth reaching, no matter it’s place or goal.
Certainly the first goal of every living being is survival, but for a long time man has sought a more wholesome and attractive reason to exist.
George Bataille shows that, even during the ancient times of the Lascaux Caves, someone took the time to draw on the walls dissociating him/herself from the mundane problems of finding food, seeking warmth and defending themselves. We are, and probably we will always be in this situation. So we need to find time to continue to look for a more compelling, more rewarding and more significant reason to keep walking on the surface of this planet.
The office is a type of “Lascaux Cave” where man collects the messages of his time and processes them to have more reasons and arguments rather than merely to have more money, more success or more personal fulfillment.
However the most important thing is not to stand still. In the office it is far more important to move rather than remain stationary.
This is why the landscape has always had a fundamental role in the creation of the office.
The office gives us the sense that we are a part of an ongoing evolution.
THE WALK
WHILE WALKING THE LANDASCAPE CHANGES CONTINUOUSLY
«It’s more important the walk from the entrance to the desk, or from the meeting to the next meeting.» Michele De Lucchi, 2015
AREAS
FOUR DISTINCT WAYS OF BEING IN THE OFFICE
1. THE CLUB
SOCIAL CONTACT & EXCHANGE
The Club is a place:
● Where to feel like being in a hotel lobby
● Where to feel like being in an airline lounge
● Where to feel like being in a London club
● Where to feel like being in a golf club house
● Where to have a coffee
● Where to wait without loosing time
● Where to become unpredictable
● Where to meet unpredictable people
● Where to face unexpected topics
● Where to exercise your capability
of improvisation
● Where to look for something you don’t know yet
● Where to listen to private conversations
● Where space is informal
● Where to look to other people
● Where to show yourself
2. FREE MAN
INDIVIDUAL WORK AND TEAM WORK, SMALL MEETING ROOMS
Free Man is a place:
● Where you feel like being
in an urban environment
● Where to be alone
● Where to work within yourself
● Where you are not to be disturbed
● Where you don’t disturb
● Where to challenge the capability
of being independent
● Where to explore who you really are
● Where to feel protected
● Where to feel isolated
● Where to look for intimacy
● Where intimacy becomes important
● Where to meet a person in private
● Where to look into somebody’s eyes
3. AGORÀ
CONFERENCE ROOM AND AUDITORIUM
Agorà is a place:
● Where you feel like being in a theater
● Where special events are organized
● Where to seat and receive information and stimuli
● Where to participate and exchange views
● Where to participate and meet with colleagues
● Where to hold a conference
● Where to attend a conference
● Where to talk to a public audience
● Where to listen to what people say
● Where to present your thoughts and ideas
● Where to get to know what people think
● Where to express yourself
● Where to know what is changing
● Where to feel a sense of community
4. LABORATORY
CREATIVE PROCESS & COMMUNICATION
Laboratory is a place:
● Where the environment looks like
a medieval village
● Where to create and to make documents
● Where to create and to make 3D representations and prototypes
● Where to create and to craft images
● Where to create softwares and applications
● Where to work with your hands
● Where to do and to learn
● Where to explore and invent
● Where to explore the use of tools
and instruments
● Where to display tools and instruments
● Where to display your thoughts,
ideas and creations
● Where everybody can be updated
● Where different processes create
a community
THE WALK TO CONNECT WITH NATURE, THE WALK AS COMPLICITY WITH ART, THE WALK AS "BELVEDERE"
The concept of Permaculture works very well when applied to agriculture, but it works equally well when applied to human culture. The same effect of hybridization and contamination that we see in plants and animals in uncultivated brush happens in the thought and creativity in those areas that donít fall directly under specific disciplines or categories of knowledge, and these uncultivated spaces, though perhaps ugly to look at (I would maintain that theyíre no ugly at all!), are vibrant and rich. An office could be something along these lines, a space left deliberately uncultivated in order to make the most fertile seeds germinate.
CONNECTING WITH NATURE
● Where you place your feet on the planet
● Where you hear the noise of the wildness
● Where you see the seasons change
● Where you feel the day passing by
● Where you can be conscious about what we have
● Where you recognize the beauty of the universe
● Where to be bitten by mosquitos
● Where to smell flowers
● Where to water small plants
● Where to see a seed become a tomato
● Where to see the effects of hybridization
COMPLICITY WITH ART
● Where you look for different perspectives
● Where art stimulates all our senses
● Where art connects past, present, future
● Where art connects the natural and the technological
● Where everything looks different from every point
● Where art has no limits
● Where art connects people
● Where to challenge your imagination
THE BELVEDERE
● Where to look at everything from an elevated point of view
● Where to put things into a different perspective
● Where to dream of new ideas
● Where to have unexpected encounters
● Where to look to afar
● Where to look back to where you have come from
● Where to look to where you are going
THE WALK FOR WORKPLACE3.0
14 - 19 April 2015
Salone del Mobile. Milano 2015, Fiera Milano, Rho
Project
Michele De Lucchi
Project director
Nic Bewick
Project team
Davide Angeli
Marco De Santi
Francesco Garofoli
Giovanna Latis
Maddalena Molteni
Greta Rosset
Client
Federlegno Arredo Eventi SpA
Location
Salone del Mobile. Milano 2015, Fiera Milano, Rho
Chronology
2014 - in progress
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