EDITION #3 : LIGHTING THE GLOBAL WORKSPACE

ANCB in collaboration with Zumtobel

This publication documents the ANCB-Zumtobel Collaborative Research Project on office lighting situations around the globe, examining their specific contexts and potential for innovation, with research teams from five continents.

BACKGROUND
New technologies represent one of the strongest driving forces for changes in architecture, people’s behavior, and everyday life. The contemporary office environment constitutes a paradigm of this influence. Changing values and social shifts require a rethinking of the way people work together. Collaborative work reaches a new dimension because of the ubiquitous access to information. On the one hand, the knowledge worker is a highly mobile person without any fixed territory; on the other hand, the quality of the place where he works matters more than ever. Office spaces evolve towards an environment, which is open and flexible to various and multiple uses, functions, regularly repeated behavior patterns, and rituals. At the same time, the miniaturizing of technological devices frees the architecture from an overload of high-tech appearances to a more sensual atmospheric presence. Therefore, it is obvious that the quality of light plays an essential part in the design of contemporary office spaces. This study shows the importance of specific and individualized lighting concepts for the knowledge worker and the  projects illustrate why context-sensitive solutions are needed in contemporary workspaces around the world.

THE RESEARCH PROJECT
In early 2014, ANCB and Zumtobel initiated a global research study on light and lighting in the contemporary office environment. Five research teams of universities from Australia, South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia were involved in this year-long study. The goal of the project was to understand diverse lighting situations around the globe, their specific contexts and potential for innovation. In the first phase, 10 office spaces in Medellín, Lagos, Berlin, Manila and Sydney were analyzed. Five projects per team moved on to phase II and finally one work environment per city was chosen by a jury to be investigated further on visionary potential during a professional workshop week in Berlin, which closed with a high-profile symposium on 20 February 2015 at ANCB. Lighting the Global Workspace was an experimental research project that allowed us to successfully test a new tool for investigating globally occurring challenges. Using real case studies and harnessing ANCB’s unique global research network through context-sensitive approaches in an open framework, proved to be a substantiate foundation.

This publication is the culmination of this expedition into the future of workspaces, showcasing the premises and the outcomes of the design research and featuring essays from guest experts and advisors.

PARTICIPATING UNIVERSITIES
Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana, Medellín, Colombia, led by Prof. Alejandro Restrepo Montoya and Prof. Alexander González Castaño
University of Lagos, Nigeria, led by Prof. Mike Adebamowo and Prof. Adetokunbo Sangowawa
Technische Universität Braunschweig, Germany, led by Prof. Almut Grüntuch-Ernst
SoFA Design Institute, Manila, Philippines, led by Prof. Tobias Guggenheimer
University of Technology Sydney, Australia, led by Prof. Thea Brejzek

WITH CONTRIBUTIONS BY
Ben van Berkel, Co-founder and Principal Architect at UNStudio, Amsterdam: Framing Light with Buildings and Vice Versa
Andreas Schulz, Founder and Director, LICHT KUNST LICHT AG, Berlin/Bonn: Playtime, Google and Beyond
Christina Dreesen, Associate, Project Management and Workspace Strategies, Arup Deutschland GmbH, Frankfurt/Main: Delivering the Future Workplace
Terry D. West, Corporate Director of Research, WorkSpace Futures, Steelcase Inc., Grand Rapids/Michigan: A New Literacy in the Creative Era

PUBLICATION DATA
Title: Lighting the Global Workspace. ANCB-Zumtobel Collaborative Research Project
Series: ANCB Edition #3
Publisher: ANCB The Aedes Metropolitan Laboratory
Format: 148 x 210 mm, 192 pages
Language: English
Price: 10 Euro
ISBN: 978-3-944083-02-5
Publication Year: 2016

 

ANCB Partners