Outdoor, Productivity, Eco, Nodes (OPEN)
Publicly accessible outdoor work spaces
By: Morgan Dundas, John Homsy, and Lisa Mishko
Through the commotion of COVID-19 there have been a variety of social dimensions radically flipped. This intervention focuses on the disruption of productivity and work.
Productivity is in a strange state where many people have been forced to work from home. For many individuals this has increased stress and reduced productivity due to managing children, environmental factors, and access to resources needed to complete the given work.
There exists a calmness from sitting still and working in a natural environment; stress loosens, fresh air moves around, natural light is being felt on your skin. There are many health benefits to being near natural features for extended periods of time. Having the ability to work in a publicly accessible outdoor space that provides resources, and creates seating in a manner that adheres to social distancing guidelines is a benefit to our society long after the end of the current pandemic.
This proposal at its core is publicly accessible outdoor work spaces; this may materialize differently depending on its location. Be it a parking spot on a main street, an open field in an urban park, or an office park in the downtown core. The scalability comes from the ideas modularity and reactive adaptation have on the immediate surroundings. In the context of an open field, desks would be placed down with native vegetation between each “work station” serving as a barrier for privacy and as a means to guide others through the grouping of “work stations”. In the context of an office park a repurposed shipping container can serve as an informal conference room or insulated studio for a small group of people year round.
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