ForLook Interior Design

More and more of us are working from home, yet we are living in smaller spaces. So how can we combine and separate work and home living?
Working at home sounds really good - you can be your own boss, your life can be flexible and you don’t have to waste time on commuting to work. But home working is not as easy as it seems..

Back at college I analysed the working & living arrangements of five people in their home. The only one whose house didn’t look a complete disaster was the one who physically separated the two functions. He converted his sitting room into an office - even got a small kitchenette and toilet installed. Every morning, when he “left for work”, he closed off the rest of his home.  Others used their bedroom, living room, kitchen or spare room as their office but paperwork always found its way into other rooms, and by the end of the week their home looked like a warehouse.

I did this research about ten years ago, but I don’t think anything has changed very much since. We dreamt of a wireless and paperless office - yet more and more gadgets require more and more space, sockets and wires. Although everything seems to be computerised and internet based, we still need keep hard copies of agreements, letters, bills and so on. Paperless, it is not.

Working from home therefore is a serious design concern. Should you dedicate one space purely to work - or should you create a flexible environment? Should you use your relaxing or family areas to conduct work from? Should your office be at all in your home or in a shed in the garden?

I used to think that flexible spaces were the answer - particularly in small homes. Spaces that can act as an office during the day, and a living or dining or guest room at night. So I used to suggest to clients to install a sliding door system that would cover a built-in workstation with shelves and storage units, or use flexible furniture such as a console table that opens into a desk.

 I’m not so sure anymore. I actually think that physical separation is essential. The out of sight out of mind approach only works on a superficial level. If we spend our whole day, whole week our whole life in the same environment - it must affect our mind and soul. Not to mention the reality of flexible spaces - you have to be extremely disciplined and organised in order to slide-away every reminder of your work. On the other hand, if you have a separate, work-dedicated room - you just close the door and leave the space - the same way you would physically leave a working environment.

Then there is the issue of socialising. Of course working at home gives you flexibility and saves you lots of time, but it can be very anti-social. You don’t meet as many people as you otherwise would and sometimes interacting with people is necessary for making decisions or developing new ideas. Small talk, even a bit of gossip, can lift your spirit. Of course this all depends on what sort of work you do, but working at home can be just as isolating as liberating.

In the next article we’ll discuss how to design a practical and good looking home office.