Teleworking and the Adaptive Reuse of Urban Interiors: The Fragmentation and Re-concentration of the Workplace

The practice of teleworking, established by the spread of Information and Communication Technology, has taken on even more importance with the current international economic crisis. Some of the workspace lost from offices because of the growth of teleworking has been regained in the form of the so-called SoHo - Small Office Home Office – which is situated within the domestic environment and used either for tele-dependent work or for a Home Based Business. Alternatively this fragmentation of the workplace may also become re-formulated in new formats of space sharing, which evolve from models of co-working. The design of these interiors is often linked to the practice of adaptive re-use of existing spaces and, therefore, consists of making a transitional arrangement of interiors using objects and furnishings. This approach allows people to continuously reassess the interior’s functional capacity to absorb the consequences of modifications in lifestyle, social relationships and production systems. On a larger scale, teleworking poses a problem for the interplay between the architectural typology and the activities taking place within interior spaces, making it difficult to perceive how the city functions and introducing the need for new tools for investigating and monitoring the way cities work.