The Office of Good Intentions. Human(s) Work

English edition. Immerse yourself with architects Florian Idenburg and LeeAnn Suen as they journey through a vast collection of objects, systems, and buildings that have occupied American offices since the advent of the Internet. Through stories and speculation, Idenburg and Suen expose the relationships between space, work and people and explore the intentions that guided the development of office design for workers.
In twelve essays, this book examines the spatial typologies and global phenomena that have defined the office over the past half century. Topics include the return of work clubs, the rise of business festivals, the way of the charismatic guru, the shattering of time and designing playgrounds for work. We walk through Frank O. Gehry's radical, playful spaces for digital nomads in the world of advertising, we stagger under the weight of stacks of punch cards, we feel the fit of our bodies in the Aeron chair, we answer the phone in Hugh Hefner's bed, and we scroll via Lil Miquela's feed. Iwan Baan's photo essays provide a post-occupation visual account of a number of canonical office projects, such as Marcel Breuer's IBM campus in Florida and the Ford Foundation's urban garden in Manhattan. Four intermediate catalogs offer collections of experimental workplace products, wishful advertisements for office building components, digital office components, and speculative workplace renderings; each catalog connects the reality of the office and how we imagine its alternatives.