Imagine, if you will, the law office of the future: digitally connected lawyers roaming between their home office, their clients and the mother-ship, stopping only to engage in a spot of cross-disciplinary brainstorming in one of their firm’s informal breakout areas before getting down to the hard work at a ‘hot desk’.
This, as you are no doubt already thinking, is some way removed from current reality, but the technology to put this vision into action already exists. Yet despite the difference that good office design and architecture can make to morale, productivity and, ultimately, the bottom line, few firms have yet to bite the bullet and really think beyond the traditional format: long lines of cellular offices, punctuated only by pools of secretaries, a few meeting rooms in the client suite and a staff canteen on the top floor.
