Sponda Plc Press Release 31 July 2012 at 12:40 p.m.
Interactivity on the rise in the business premises of the future
The results of a workshop carried out by Sponda and international architecture students reveal that in the future, the business premises of companies will be more and more flexible, specialised and playful. Office facilities are also becoming a more important competitive edge on the recruiting markets.
The workshop, entitled Zerobase, was carried out as a part of the Wastelands festival for European architecture students, which was held in Helsinki from 16 to 29 July. The goal of the workshop was to study the future of workspace in a world becoming ever more digitised. We are constantly online, and work is no longer bound to one place. At the same time, the demands placed on workspaces are changing.
The workshop was held in the centre of Helsinki at the Citycenter building recently renovated by Sponda, where the students had at their disposal around 700 square metres of empty office space. The workshop was carried out by tutors Christopher Maloney (UK), Elaine Bonavia (Malta) and four participants in the Wastelands festival. On two days, a group of invited guests also participated in the workshop.
”Sponda’s operations are not limited to the sales and rental of ‘ceilings and walls’. When it comes to facilities, you always have to take the purpose and the users’ wishes into consideration. Working culture is at a turning point, so we are naturally interested in what will be expected of workspace in the future. At the same time we want to support opportunities for the facility designers of the future to showcase their skills, and this festival is a good example of such an opportunity,” says Pia Arrhenius, Senior Vice President, Corporate Communications and IR at Sponda.
In the information society, more interaction is also expected from architects.
“Instead of having the architect make the drawings alone, according to his or her own considerations, cooperation across borders is now a desired feature of the design process. This kind of change in mindset is important in architect training, and I intend to continue with the themes brought up in the workshop in my academic work,” tutor Christopher Maloney, who teaches architecture at the University of Manchester, commented.
Sponda Plc
For further information, please contact:
Pia Arrhenius, Senior Vice President, Corporate Communications and IR, tel.+358 20 431 3454
Chris Maloney (UK), workshop leader, c.maloney@mmu.ac.uk
Eero Alho, festival organising team, tel. +358 44 204 6211
Sponda Plc is a property investment company that specialises in commercial properties in the largest cities in Finland and Russia. Sponda’s business concept is to own, lease and develop office, retail and logistics properties into environments that promote the business success of its clients. The fair value of Sponda's investment properties is approximately EUR 3.2 billion and the leasable area is around 1.5 million m².
