A
A moment inside the twenty-first-century workplace
Connecting
Walking into the Steelcase WorkCafé,
recently built at the company’s Grand Rapids
headquarters, I spy three young men with their
eyes fixed on laptops. Sitting in Coalesse’s SW_1™
chairs, they swivel occasionally to make eye
contact, striking discursive poses as they chat.
Photo: Sean Hemmerle
Suddenly, one of them jumps up and
calls my name. As he runs to greet me,
I recognize Von Robinson—now a member
of the company’s global design studio—
from several years back, when he was
a star student in my Ethics of Design
course at Parsons. After our brief and
warm reunion, and promises to reconnect,
Von goes back to work, and I proceed to
the café for what turns out to be a delicious, healthy lunch made with local
produce. Such scenes are commonplace
at WorkCafé. People are working, eating,
and talking while using all kinds of portable and fixed technologies to connect to
each other, as well as to the information
they need for learned discourse.
Or they just catch up on emails. On any
given day, you may see a regional man-
ager, in town from a far-flung Steelcase
outpost for meetings, getting over jetlag
with help from a steaming cup of coffee,
witnessing new and evolving ways of
work. This is not your father’s office, and
it certainly isn’t your mother’s Steelcase.
and working on his laptop while leaning
back in what we used to call, in the
twentieth century, an “easy chair.”
Observing the action around the large
open space, groups of visitors see how
a totally connected workplace
actually works. I’m told that
on this morning, represen-
tatives from a financial
institution—facilities
managers, interior de-
signers, architects, human-
resources specialists, and
others, about t wo dozen total—
are looking to understand how
they too can restructure their work-
places for the global markets they serve.
As I watch them examine every detail
of the company’s impressive collection of furniture offerings in use, while
Steelcase employees go about their
business undisturbed, I realize I’m
