The Covid-19-pandemic forced millions of companies around the world to embrace remote working amid stay-at-home orders. Many are wondering whether working-from-home might become the new normal and even make obsolete the traditional office. Architect Norman Foster does not believe there will be a complete shift, as he lays out in his interview with the InnHub. «The future of humanity is not two meters apart. We are social animals; we can't help it.»
Changes in the workplace had begun long before the pandemic, according to Foster. Increasingly, he continues, companies are keen to create spaces where employees can meet. «We are now already designing buildings which deliberately encourage the interaction, the chance meeting. Creativity happens much more scientifically in the social spaces, in the cafes, in the chance meeting in a corridor – far more than in the formal laboratories.»
«The core need for people to come together face to face»
The number of people looking to find a new work-life balance is increasing. «Some people will continue to work at home. But still come in for those things which are critical,» says Norman Foster. Working together remotely via digital channels and screens can be very effective and will make some business-related travel unnecessary, so he believes. But projects and ideas that are in their very early stages would still require a team to work together closely. «It's line of sight, it's proximity, it's quick decision-making, interaction between individuals. That's not going to change.»
Norman Foster is creating an innovation campus for La Punt, a village in the mountains of Grisons, near St. Moritz. The ‹InnHub La Punt› is designed for corporate and academic teams to work on new ideas. The InnHub is also meant to provide a space for visitors to the region to work remotely part of the time. New experiences will be enriched by the Alpine surroundings and the exchange with the locals.
«Wow - what a push!»
For the InnHub, the pandemic has been almost like an audit, says Foster in the interview. «If this seemed like a great idea before the pandemic, given the pandemic, wow – what a push!»
A little over a year ago, the people of La Punt voted in favour of the project. The clear yes did not come as a surprise to Norman Foster, who spends a lot of his time in the Engadin valley in the Swiss Alps. «The people of the Engadin have always shown a thirst for experimentation,» he states, recalling the many innovations and inventions of the early days of the tourism industry in the valley. «And this is an experiment. How do you – in the ultimately sustainable way – regenerate the community, which is numerically in decline?»
The InnHub brings together people of all ages and professions. It is a vision of the future that arises from a unique democratic process. «When I was approached about this project, that was my perfect project. It was about the future.»
The interview was conducted by Christian Gartmann, the communications and media officer of the InnHub La Punt.