igloo likes: Future Working Spaces. A conversation with Arjan Dingsté of UNStudio

In the past three decades, a series of quiet revolutions in design have changed the way offices are used, erasing former hierarchies of walls and cubicles and incorporating workplace methodologies from the technology industry into team-based, open-plan layouts. At the same time, digital tools such as e-mail, Excel, Google Docs, video conferencing, virtual whiteboarding, and chat channels have made a worker’s presence in those offices less essential. The pandemic has collapsed these divergent trends into an existential question: What’s an office for? – said John Seabrook, this time last year, in an arcticle on The New Yorker.

It is indeed a matter of here and now. Since every company has, in the past two years, reconsidered its efficient strategies towards envisioning the working places (them being from home or the usual in-office-situation), it feels like it’s the best time to strengthen our visions towards the future of our offices. We invited UNStudio architect Arjan Dingsté to discuss the future of working spaces.

Over the past 19 years Arjan has significantly contributed to some of  UNStudio’s most iconic projects including the Arnhem Central Public Transportation Terminal in The Netherlands, and the Architectural  Design for the Doha Metro network as well as key high-end mixed-use  projects like the Booking.com headquarters that is currently under  construction.

Arjan’s integrated approach towards design management from the early project phases is combined with a wide spread experience in  successfully leading complex multidisciplinary engineering projects. With his deep involvement in UNStudio’s key projects, from design to  construction, he has gained a high level of expertise through all project  phases. Arjan combines an analytic design and managerial approach  with high ambitions on architecture, structural and material performance  and brings the specific knowledge of organizational methods, design  typologies and material / technology driven innovations to both UNStudio’s projects and internal knowledge development and  innovation driven projects.

Our readers have also had the chance to meet Arjan Dingsté as part of the jury panel of 2031 NOW_our cities in 10 years, an architecture student competition powered by Globalworth Foundation and organized by igloo.