Everyone has the right to get a comfortable, enjoyable and productive workplace”.
A pioneer in office innovation, Sven Brookhuis challenges traditional workplaces and wonders why so many fail to inspire. In his lecture on the Auditorium stage at the Work Culture Festival, he focused on the central aspect of building sustainability. The vision is to be able to offer all employees a working environment in which they feel comfortable and can be productive, with sustainable office buildings, built in series, based on prefabricated components with wood as the main material, highly energy efficient, demountable and convertible. A prototype of the office building, which will be configurable online in the future, is currently being built in ‘s‑Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands. The new office building will cover 4,000 square metres over five floors. It remains to be seen how well the concept lives up to the high expectations. A number of questions remain unanswered. For example, whether the construction method allows for sufficient customisation and, if the concept is successful, what it means for existing buildings.
Photo: © IBA