With Offices Beginning To Reopen, How Will COVID-19 Change The Workspace?
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- As offices begin to open up, they will have to deal with some serious questions about safety as the coronavirus pandemic remains ongoing. One architect spoke with Eyewitness News about the new reality.
When we finally get back to normal and are allowed back to the office, what exactly will normal look like? Will we still share common spaces? Will the walls we've been breaking down in recent designs go back up?
"I wish I could say there's a physical design that would satisfy this, but if we designed a physical design to keep everyone separate, it would be a pretty miserable space," Jamie Wyper, founding partner at JacobsWyper Architects, said.
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JacobsWyper Architects is an architecture, planning and interior design firm in Philadelphia that has designed award-winning facilities for clients such as Johnson & Johnson, Amtrak and Wawa.
Eyewitness News wanted to get an architect's perspective on how the future of the office could change as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"I don't think we're ever going to return to the closed office," Wyper said. "Just adding partitions between workstations doesn't deal with issues like common facilities, common technology and conference rooms, how we deal with that. We really want to go to a hygienic technology, where people are wiping down keyboards and mouses and really limiting congregation points.
"Work is a very social activity so we need to provide space where we can gather informally and formally. To separate all the work stations, which are generally are six to seven feet apart would be pretty expensive. Our strategy would be to really maintain social distance and not bring everyone back in the office at one time."
Watch the video above for more.
