Understanding The Destination Office: What’s a coworking bureau?

The destination office is a concept we’re all now familiar with and we write about it regularly on this blog.  With the widely-held idea that work is now an activity not a place – it’s becoming more necessary for business leaders to reinvent the workplace, give it new purpose and make it a compelling place to visit.

The coworking bureau is one of those purposeful spaces and it is intended to meet the new needs of a more agile, choice-led and tech-savvy workforce. It’s also integral to creating a FutureFlexible workplace.

The bureau actually comprises two types of space – one is the hive, and the other the study. Together they provide a revamped and vastly improved version of the traditional office.

The hive is a collaborative space which offers a combination of informal collaborative spaces (sofas, high backed pods and kitchen tables) as well as more formal enclosed meeting rooms which can be used for face-to-face meetings and video collaboration. The emphasis is certainly on providing tech-rich resources and because of a much more transient working population, these are often bookable spaces.

The study on the other hand is more akin to a coworking space – it supports task orientated activity and head-down working.  Although the general consensus is that there will be less ‘head down’ activity in a destination office (as this is activity more suited to home-working)– it’s wrong to thing there won’t be any. If people visit the office for collaboration and meetings – there will still be pockets of time where head down working is both required and desired.

The study space provides all the ergonomic tools required for longer periods of desk-based working, including plug and play capability and a concierge approach to facilities such as printing, refreshments and lockers.  It’s also important to recognise that although many employers have moved to hybrid working – there will still be some job roles that need to be office based all of the time.  With this in mind the study space will comprise a blend of owned desks and neighbourhoods (although far fewer than the pre-Covid model) and unallocated spaces.

Together the hive and the study are a powerhouse of productivity. They give aspects of the traditional workplace a complete overhaul by blending owned and un-owned spaces together, recognising how time will really be spent during a day in the destination office and ensuring that tech-rich amenity and choice are the order of the day.

So while a coworking bureau might have first conjured images of a super traditional workplace it’s actually anything but. As employer strive to make sense of the pandemic-experience and ensure a workplace that not only supports how work is done but the holistic needs of its people – it’s important to understand the essence of the destination office, the spaces it comprises and why and how they work individually and together.

If you need help imagining your destination office and are about to embark on a new office interior design or office refurbishment project.– find out more here.