Human-centric Workplace Ecosystem in Cities and Regions – Part 1

In the next few articles, we will be expanding the concepts dealing with the work environments that we have been writing about throughout this series (workplace at the level of an office, room, or a building) to the scale of cities and regions. The New Normal that we have entered now allows people the freedom and the power to choose where they work and live.

Large-scale Human-centric Workplace Ecosystem

Why should we consider the urban or regional scale when discussing the human-centric work environment?

Many people will have the option to work in multiple locations in the New Normal. People are demanding a multi-place system, and businesses are approving of it.

In this article series, we have been emphasizing the importance of perspective from the person in the work environment for the space to truly support well-being.

Now that people occupy multiple spaces (main office, satellite office, home office) in various places (neighborhood, town or city, region), it is inevitable that the work environment includes all of these spaces and places. These are now the spatial nodes in the large-scale ecosystem of work.

In addition, in this multi-place system, people can travel between different spatial nodes. The action of traveling (on foot, by car or train) and the path traveled (infrastructure) will also become an essential part of this large-scale work ecosystem. People will be doing Michiyuki on a larger scale. By including in-between spaces and places, the large-scale multi-place system is not just hybrid. It is and needs to be treated as an ecosystem that keeps evolving and adjusting itself.

Choose, Create, and Connect: Three Freedoms Ensured by the Large-scale Ecosystem

What does the multi-place large-scale workplace ecosystem offer you in the New Normal?

I (Yoko) expected and am seeing that it gives people the freedom to Choose places to work and live, Create ways (space and time) to work and live, and Connect with people and the society for work and living. I introduced the 3Cs concept in a book I co-wrote titled Power of Dwelling (in Japanese). 

These three freedoms ensure that you have a right to design the way to work and live, that work and life can be merged or separated as much as you like, and that the work part of your life should contribute to your life as a whole. These freedoms, enabled by the large-scale workplace ecosystem, support your well-being. The Great Resignation, the trend we see as we write this series, is caused in part, by the lack of these freedoms. 

Now that we have introduced this concept of the large-scale workplace ecosystem for people and business well-being, we will dive deeper into each of these freedoms in our upcoming articles.

(Written by Yoko Kawai and Yvonne Burton)