Fresh air
sustainabilityI spent a few days working from home this week, in an attempt to avoid sharing an unpleasant head cold with my workmates and fellow train commuters. It had been a while since I had worked from home, since there is a reasonable amount of collaboration in the office and working in the office is generally preferred, if not required.
As far as offices go, my day job has a pretty good one: it has a great location in terms of public transport and access to restaurants, cafes, shops, art galleries and my university. It has a lot of space, open plan, with a funky lounge area instead of a board room, an air hockey table and big double-glazed windows at either end. I wouldn't say it's an architecturally designed space, but it's pretty reasonable, and I've been in much worse. And importantly, it has a great culture. It's not quite Google in the early 2000s, but, like the Australian Constitution, it has a good vibe.
But in this instance, in spite of the many things the office has going for it, it made more sense for me to work at home. And in those few days, I have noticed a few interesting things.
Firstly, how much I have missed music. A couple of years ago one of the managers would put on some kind of flamenco guitar music occasionally, which was great, but for the most part the office is music-free. I have been listening to music on my headphones at work sometimes of late, and enjoying it thoroughly, but sometimes that can feel a bit antisocial in an open office. Plus I still remember my Dad, a retired teacher, telling me years ago about the music experiment he did with a class. The exercise demonstrated that if you study while listening to music, you don't retain as much information— unless your are listening to the same music at the time you need to recall the information. In many situations, like school maths tests and exams, you don't have the luxury of cranking your favourite study albumn. But hey, writing code, or change specs, or testing, or designing are not, in most cases, "study". Nor are they tests. So unless I'm working on something complex like optimising an SQL query or untangling someone's spaghetti code— or meeting with a client— I'm not sure my Dad's experiment is all that relevant.
At home, I can pick out anything from my collection and give it a burl. If I am doing fairly mundane work, I can listen to all sorts. If I am trying to nut something out, I can go for some smooth instrumental jazz or lounge music with subtler vocals, and maybe turn the volume down a notch or two. But unless I am trying to learn something new, taking in something complex, or wrangling with a tricky problem, I have been surprised at how much the right music can help me focus and get in the zone.
Secondly: the natural light. I have set up my home studio desk so it's right in front of the window, and I don't need a lamp, or any artificial light, for the whole working day. If it's mild or cool, I can still get some real sunlight on my legs; if it's hot I can close one of the curtains and still work in natural light— and I don't miss fluorescent light one bit. I mentioned that the office has nice big windows, but most of the desks are far enough away from them that they get the bulk of their light from the rows of fluorescent lights overhead.
And most of them don't open, which brings me to the next thing: the air.
A couple of days ago, the day between the 35°C belated summer day and the rainy day, it was gorgeous. In addition to the warm sunlight streaming in, I had a couple of windows open at either end of the house, and a beautiful southerly breeze was blowing through. It was delicious. Especially when contrasted with the office equivalent; did I mention that, because the office is not on the ground floor, only two windows open, and then only by about 10cm. And if you do open them, because they lack flyscreens, you apparently end up with flies or pidgeons or sparrows or some other creatures inevitably finding their way into the office, and no practical, chemical-free way to get them out. Of course, any closed office environment, even on a perfect 23°C day, requires air-conditioning to keep the place from over-heating and filling with stale pre-breathed air.
No air conditioner can ever compare to that southerly breeze.
Finally, the view; the space. I don't just see, and feel, the sunlight streaming through the window. I can also see my garden. Every now and then I can look up and see the chickens scratching in the yard under the hibiscus trees, the other birds hanging around trying to pinch their feed, the fruit trees, and the veggie patch— most of which pulled through the hot spell at the start of the week. They're not distracting at all, but they're a pleasant refreshment when your eyes need a brief rest from the screen, or when you need to stare into space while you think something through.
To be fair, there is a lot to see out the office window. Every now and then a flock of protesters will march past down to parliament house with their police escort. There is a tram stop across the road and Rundle Mall— a pedestrian-only street lined with shops as opposed to the American definition of 'mall'— a few doors down, so if you sit by the window, there is a great view.
But I've reached the conclusion, in a broad sweeping way, that when it comes to offices we're doing it wrong. I had so much to write home about this week— and I haven't even mentioned how cool it is to make banana fritters for lunch when you run out of bread— except I was home, and I was at least as productive as I would be in the office, if not more. But none of these things requires you to be at home. Any office, properly designed, decorated and operated, can have music, natural light, fresh air, and a breathtaking view of a garden. What baffles me is the fact that we don't. How did we allow our architects and developers to build these drab, sterile, lightless boxes we call "offices". They're not conducive to productivity, health, mental or emotional wellbeing, life.
Yes, there are reasons for high-rise offices, not the least of which is preventing the problems of urban sprawl, and there are some wonderful "offices" around the world, both physical and cultural, that challenge the awful stereotypes: they breathe, let in natural light, perhaps play music and are generally conducive to various forms of life (the HSBC Building in Hong Kong is one of my favourites), but I don't think they are the norm yet. And I don't think we should wait for the current stock of offices to be retired, condemned, demolished and replaced with 10-star passively-heated chilled-beam permeable-skin super-efficient water-saving energy-producing tree-scrapers before we can all work in a space that has more in common with a garden than a 1950s hospital ward.
Ebenezer Howard dreamed of the garden city.
I say bring on the garden office. Whether it be at home with a broadband connection or on the 15th floor of an inner city tower. Your workplace can— nay, should— be beautiful.