Happily, the workplace is no longer tied to prescriptive ideas of how it should look or function. Corporations and start-ups alike are creating multi-purpose spaces in which people do lots of different things. Given the mobility and diversity of the people at work, we see a need for universal design and materials that allow everyone to function, to do what they do, whoever they are. Today, materials are not applied as specifically as before, rather we look for textiles that can be used across the office and on both the horizontal and vertical plane.
As an example, furniture designers are creating new kinds of furniture like freestanding semi-private work enclosures, as well as all manner of high-back sofas and chairs designed to offer a sense of privacy. These products require fabrics that work in all directions; that can be applied to the seat and the back or to wrap the surround. To add visual interest, we can embellish the back of a high back sofa and not the seat. We can also address acoustics by using thick wool felting or other fabrics that help to absorb sound.
At the same time, many companies have moved out of the high rise or the office park and into the city. Vacant warehouses and abandoned factories are being repurposed as offices, as are derelict train stations and even old churches. Adaptive reuse, often a radical change in the function of a building, has created a trend towards workplaces housed in an envelope characterized by exposed structures and raw materials—an architectural context that inspires a softening of upholstery and panel fabrics, floor coverings and wall coverings. As textile designers, we are creating richer, more textural, fabrics that have a warmth to them as a counterpoint to raw wood, burnt wood and tinted wood, as well as unpainted brick and galvanized metal. In work environments, we are using metals like brass and copper, rather than chrome; ceramics with a matte finish, rather than a lustrous glaze. Wool is very popular, not only for wool’s comfort and breathability, but also because it suggests pre-digital, analog processes, i.e., the art of handweaving.