How Can Architecture Influence Office Routines? Princeton University Grad Domenica Massamby Explores Innovative Workspaces

This atypical typology inserts friction into the typical plan. The unsmoothing of floor plates tries to create the necessity for a deliberate movement and modes of interaction, as the circulation expands and attenuates. Flying floorplates diverge from common nodes, creating niches and distinct local addresses and eliminating the concept of a well-defined central core. — All imagery and captions by Domenica Massamby.

Domenica Massamby is a recent graduate from

Princeton School of Architecture

. Archinect connected with Domenica to learn more about her final thesis project, which explores how spatial characteristics can influence the typical routines of daily office life

.

The building occupies a block in downtown Wilmington, DE, absorbing the sloping street avenue, and so, the street indicates the

beginning

of a sequence that continues into a sheltered plaza.

View of a typical—or atypical—interior hall reveals a

directional bias

in favor of navigating and experiencing multiple “floors” at once.

Aisles link big and small, but they strip the notion of the corridor as social condensers, leveraging actual trays as the real space for local interactions, and encouraging a determined movement through space.

My thesis was a speculation about a new mode of work that could challenge the tenets of efficiency and productivity that produce very predictable patterns of use of space, and ultimately determine the routine of office life. The project developed from thinking about the role of leisure and the ascribed values of time that dictate the value of work itself. Its an attempt to restructure worker relationships and introduce autonomy in the way they navigate their careers (both spatially and socially).

Early prototype models of general vertical organization, exploring relationships between floor-to-floor heights, centralized cores and overall drifting of floors.

Perspective sections show interiors that are

discrete

and

varied

in one axis, requiring minimal vertical partitions, and

continuous

and

repetitive

in the other, operating as more conventional open floor configurations.

Domenica Massamby presents during Fall 2019 final reviews. Photo by Ali Nugent, courtesy of Princeton School of Architecture.

It’s hard to determine exactly what would have changed, but I do know that the ability to produce models in real time would likely have pushed the eventual design in different directions. Issues like distancing, work-life separation, and balance became more prominent questions in the last couple months. I don’t believe they’ve been totally answered, but it’s made the thesis more dynamic in its development.

Floor plates are arranged in 30-by-30-foot trays in a shifting grid that accommodate different local programming which expand and shrink accordingly, for public (open) needs and private offices.

Although it’s difficult to have to constantly validate your own ideas, and easy to become swayed by other voices—whether it’s advisors, reviewers, peers—I think it’s important to not just submit a cohesive thesis but one that you believe in. Having said that, it’s only an experiment of our ideas, so taking it too seriously as the only/final/pivotal project of your career is a disservice to possible developments it could see throughout the process and possibly later in a professional journey. I wish anyone starting soon the best of luck!

The metrics of the platforms maintain a high degree of flexibility which can absorb different density of programming, whether it be cubicles, archives, and libraries, or gardens and kitchens. They accumulate to create varied interior spaces which are animated with a diversity of views and access through

aisles

instead of corridors,

landings

instead of lobbies, and

balconies

instead of foyers.

Aisles link big and small, but they strip the notion of the corridor as social condensers, leveraging actual trays as the real space for local interactions, and encouraging a determined movement through space.

The divergence of opposite-running plates creates the need for occasional shortcuts between adjacent plates. The communication stair as a trope is embedded with function, folding up to provide additional private rooms and views to spaces below.