本文選自經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)人，看看疫情對(duì)辦公室的改變！

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學(xué)習(xí)建議：

1. 在語(yǔ)境中理解詞匯的用法和表達(dá)；

2. 了解本文的核心觀點(diǎn)和主旨；

The office of the future

Cubicles are out. Bars, neighbourhoods and sensors are in.

隔間已被淘汰。酒吧、社區(qū)和傳感器已經(jīng)進(jìn)入。

The office used to be a place people went because they had to. Meetings happened in conference rooms and in person. Desks took up the bulk of the space. The kingdom of Dilbert and of David Brent is now under threat. The pandemic has exposed the office to competition from remote working, and brought up a host of questions about how it should be designed in the future.

辦公室曾經(jīng)是一個(gè)人們不得不去的地方。會(huì)議在會(huì)議室和個(gè)人中進(jìn)行。辦公桌占據(jù)了大部分的空間。迪爾伯特和大衛(wèi)-布倫特的王國(guó)現(xiàn)在正受到威脅。這種流行病使辦公室面臨來(lái)自遠(yuǎn)程工作的競(jìng)爭(zhēng)，并帶來(lái)了一系列關(guān)于未來(lái)應(yīng)該如何設(shè)計(jì)辦公室的問(wèn)題。

Start with what the office is for. In the past it was a place for employees to get their work done, whatever form that took. Now other conceptions of its role jostle for attention. Some think of the office as the new offsite. Its purpose is to get people together in person so they can do the things that remote working makes harder: forging deeper relationships or collaborating in real time on specific projects. Others talk of the office as a destination, a place that has to make the idea of getting out of bed earlier, in order to mingle with people who may have covid-19, seem attractive.

從辦公室的用途開(kāi)始。在過(guò)去，它是員工完成工作的地方，無(wú)論采取什么形式?，F(xiàn)在，關(guān)于它的作用的其他概念正在爭(zhēng)奪注意力。有些人認(rèn)為辦公室是新的非現(xiàn)場(chǎng)。它的目的是讓人們聚集在一起，這樣他們就可以做一些遠(yuǎn)程工作難以做到的事情：建立更深的關(guān)系或就具體項(xiàng)目進(jìn)行實(shí)時(shí)合作。還有人把辦公室說(shuō)成是一個(gè)目的地，一個(gè)必須讓人覺(jué)得更早起床，以便與可能有 covid-19 的人打交道的地方有吸引力。

In other words, a layout that is largely devoted to people working at serried desks alongside the same colleagues each day all feels very 2019. With fewer people coming in and more emphasis on collaboration, fewer desks will be assigned to individuals. Instead, there will be more shared areas, or “neighbourhoods”, where people in a team can work together flexibly. (More hot-desking will also necessitate storage space for personal possessions: lockers may soon be back in your life.)

換句話說(shuō)，一個(gè)主要用于人們每天在鋸齒狀的辦公桌前與相同的同事一起工作的布局，都讓人感覺(jué)很2019。隨著進(jìn)來(lái)的人越來(lái)越少，越來(lái)越強(qiáng)調(diào)合作，分配給個(gè)人的辦公桌會(huì)越來(lái)越少。相反，將有更多的共享區(qū)域，或 "鄰里"，團(tuán)隊(duì)中的人可以靈活地一起工作。(更多的辦公桌也將需要為個(gè)人財(cái)產(chǎn)提供存儲(chǔ)空間：儲(chǔ)物柜可能很快就會(huì)回到你的生活中）。

To bridge gaps between teams, one tactic is to set aside more of the office to showcase the work of each department, so that people who never encounter each other on Zoom can see examples of what their colleagues do. Another option is to ply everyone with drink. Expect more space to be set aside for socialising and events. Bars in offices are apparently going to be a thing. Robin Klehr Avia of Gensler, an architecture firm, says she is seeing lots of requests for places, like large auditoriums, where a company’s clients can have “experiences”.

為了彌合團(tuán)隊(duì)之間的差距，一種策略是留出更多的辦公室來(lái)展示每個(gè)部門(mén)的工作，這樣那些在 Zoom 上從未遇到過(guò)的人就可以看到他們同事的工作實(shí)例。另一個(gè)選擇是向每個(gè)人灌輸意識(shí)。預(yù)計(jì)會(huì)有更多的空間被留出來(lái)用于社交和活動(dòng)。辦公室里的酒吧顯然會(huì)成為一種現(xiàn)象。建筑公司 Gensler 的 Robin Klehr Avia 說(shuō)，她看到很多人要求提供像大型禮堂這樣的場(chǎng)所，讓公司的客戶(hù)可以有 "體驗(yàn)"。

Designs for the post-covid office must also allow for hybrid work. Meetings have to work for virtual participants as well as for in-person contributors: cameras, screens and microphones will proliferate. Gensler’s New York offices feature mini-meeting rooms that have a monitor and a half-table jutting out from the wall below it, with seating for four or five people arranged to face the screen, not each other.

新冠疫情后的辦公室設(shè)計(jì)也必須允許混合工作。會(huì)議必須適用于虛擬參與者和親自參與的人：攝像機(jī)、屏幕和麥克風(fēng)將大量涌現(xiàn)。Gensler 的紐約辦公室有一個(gè)迷你會(huì)議室，里面有一個(gè)顯示器和一張從下面的墻上伸出來(lái)的半張桌子，四五個(gè)人的座位被安排成面對(duì)屏幕，而不是彼此。

Variety will be another theme. People may plan to work in groups in the morning, but need to concentrate on something in the afternoon. Ryan Anderson of Herman Miller, a furniture firm, likens the difference between the pre- and post-pandemic office to that between a hotel and a home. Hotels are largely given over to rooms for individuals. “Home is thought of as a place for a family over years, hosting lots of different activities.”

多樣性將是另一個(gè)主題。人們可能計(jì)劃在上午分組工作，但在下午需要集中精力做一些事情。赫曼米勒（Herman Miller）家具公司的瑞恩-安德森（Ryan Anderson）將大流行前和大流行后辦公室的區(qū)別比作酒店和家庭的區(qū)別。酒店在很大程度上被賦予了個(gè)人的房間。"家被認(rèn)為是一個(gè)家庭多年來(lái)的場(chǎng)所，承載著許多不同的活動(dòng)"。

All of which implies the need for flexibility. Laptop docking stations are simple additions, but other bits of office furniture are harder to overhaul. Desks themselves tend to be tethered to the floor through knotted bundles of cables and plugs. The office of the future may well feature desks with wheels, which ought to go well with all that extra alcohol. Meeting rooms are likely to be more flexible, too, with walls that lift and slide.

所有這些都意味著對(duì)靈活性的需求。筆記本電腦基座是簡(jiǎn)單的補(bǔ)充，但辦公家具的其他部分就很難改造了。辦公桌本身往往通過(guò)打結(jié)的電纜和插頭捆綁在地板上。未來(lái)的辦公室很可能以帶輪子的辦公桌為特色，這應(yīng)該與所有額外的酒精相匹配。會(huì)議室也可能會(huì)更加靈活，墻壁可以升降和滑動(dòng)。

If socialising and flexibility are two of the themes of the post-pandemic office, a third is data. Property and hr managers alike will want more data in order to understand how facilities are being used, and on which days and times people are bunching in the office. Workers will demand more data on health risks: the quality of ventilation within meeting rooms, say, or proper contact-tracing if a colleague tests positive for the latest covid-19 variant.

如果社交和靈活性是后大流行時(shí)代辦公室的兩個(gè)主題，那么第三個(gè)主題就是數(shù)據(jù)。物業(yè)和人力資源經(jīng)理都希望得到更多的數(shù)據(jù)，以了解設(shè)施的使用情況，以及人們?cè)谀男┤兆雍蜁r(shí)間聚集在辦公室里。工人們將需要更多關(guān)于健康風(fēng)險(xiǎn)的數(shù)據(jù)：比如說(shuō)，會(huì)議室內(nèi)的通風(fēng)質(zhì)量，或者當(dāng)一個(gè)同事對(duì)最新的 covid-19 變體檢測(cè)呈陽(yáng)性時(shí)，適當(dāng)?shù)慕佑|追蹤。

And data will flow more copiously in response: from sensors in desks and lighting but also from desk-booking tools and visitor-management apps. The question of who owns data on office occupants and what consent mechanisms are needed to gather this information is about to become more pressing.

作為回應(yīng)，數(shù)據(jù)將更加豐富：來(lái)自辦公桌和照明的傳感器，也來(lái)自辦公桌預(yù)訂工具和訪客管理應(yīng)用程序。誰(shuí)擁有辦公人員的數(shù)據(jù)以及收集這些信息需要什么樣的同意機(jī)制，這個(gè)問(wèn)題將變得更加緊迫。

Put this all together and what do you get? If you are an optimist, the office of the future will be a spacious, collaborative environment that makes the commute worth it. If you are a pessimist, it will be a building full of heavily surveilled drunkard. In reality, pragmatic considerations—how much time is left on the lease, the physical constraints of a building’s layout, uncertainty about the path of the pandemic—will determine the pace of change. Whatever happens, the office won't be what it was.

把這一切放在一起，你會(huì)得到什么？如果你是一個(gè)樂(lè)觀主義者，未來(lái)的辦公室將是一個(gè)寬敞的、協(xié)作的環(huán)境，使通勤變得值得。如果你是一個(gè)悲觀主義者，它將是一棟充滿(mǎn)嚴(yán)重監(jiān)視的醉漢的大樓。在現(xiàn)實(shí)中，務(wù)實(shí)的考慮——租約還剩多少時(shí)間，建筑布局的物理限制，大流行病路徑的不確定性——將決定變革的步伐。無(wú)論發(fā)生什么，辦公室都不會(huì)是原來(lái)的樣子。