I am writing this letter in a setting that is soon to be obsolete—a small private office assigned just to me, sitting at an L-shaped desk, with a few photographs, mementos, and the odd quotation pinned to the wall. I also confess to having quite a few magazines, folders, and books strewn about, which seems normal and cozy to me.
Yet according to Unispace, a workplace design firm in Sydney, the traditional desk could go the way of the typewriter in the next few years, as workers become increasingly transient—even when they are in their employer’s offices. Of course, the open plan has been around at least as far back as Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1906 Larkin Building. But the recent trend away from working in a designated cubicle—to grabbing a seat at a bench or plopping into a lounge chair with a laptop—is accelerating: more full-time employees no longer have assigned desks at their companies, as rising real-estate costs and evolving work styles make the idea of an individualized work space both a luxury and an anachronism.
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