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Blending the workplace with hospitality

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Blending the workplace with hospitality

One of the hotel experts at our roundtable noted that if offices were designed with greater ancillary spaces, hospitality operators could easily take over those areas. These could be in the form of fixed, shared amenity floors, or perhaps pockets across the office that provide different services throughout the day – for example, a café for food and coffee, a laundry service, a restaurant and bar for dinner and drinks, and a 24/7 gym.

Branding and identity can also be used to enhance the employee experience, enabling people to travel between different co-working locations and still feel part of a community – much like guests who visit different hotels from the same hospitality group. Consistency across sites ensures ease of transition and instant familiarity, and when the same amenities and workstations are provided across sites, workers can execute their jobs effectively, regardless of location. Similarly, the sense of comfort found in the hospitality industry – which can be incorporated into office breakout zones, communal spaces and integrated hospitality venues – can facilitate a better transition between working and relaxing.

The concept of the 15-minute city, popularised by Paris’s mayor, Anne Hidalgo, arose in our discussion as a large-scale example of how mixed-use buildings can, and should, exist alongside each other. We can take the idea of condensed cities, where hospitality venues, workplaces, residential buildings and shared spaces neighbour one another, and apply this to the workplace. In doing so, we can create a micro-city within the office context that incorporates the comforts of hospitality and the capabilities of modern technology, ultimately placing people at the centre of the design.

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