Sonali Bhagwati

Office design has undergone a sea change since the early 90s. Opening up of the economy back then heralded a new era in this regard, points out Bhagwati. In her experience, some of the popular new trends are: no personalised desks; break down of hierarchy; open and equally sized workstations; introduction of social spaces; feel-at-home at work; possibility of working from different areas; emphasis on working comfort; sitting or standing workdesks; ergonomically designed chairs; lighting design; introduction of small meeting rooms interspersed in office space and introduction of phone booths for telephonic conversations with required acoustic privacy.

“Learning is a continuous process and we all need to keep evolving with time. In fact, it is the new trends that excite the design teams. We constantly look for opportunities to experiment with new ideas, materials and technology. We constantly study the international trends and explore their relevance in our content. We encourage vendors to present new products and systems that we try to integrate into our design,” states Bhagwati.