This article was taken from the August 2014 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by <span class="s1">subscribing online.
The notion of life/work balance seems a legacy from another era.
The proliferation of devices and ubiquitous connectivity ensures that we are always at work. Yet the office abides -- albeit in a very different form to the corporate hives of a decade ago. The new working environment is at once rec room and high street, coffee bar and potting shed. Wired identified eight pulse-racing offices -- from San Francisco to Stockholm -- that offer a sense of how such a shift in thinking is allowing us to work smarter.
Many new headquarters planned by US tech giants mark a radical shift in American corporate architecture. Sir Norman Foster's new Apple HQ in Cupertino -- a flying-saucer-like ring 1.6km in circumference -- is already iconic, two years before it even opens.
Frank Gehry's design for Facebook's new HQ in Menlo Park, in contrast, is an elongated, angular jumble, hidden from above by a roof garden. As remarkable as these buildings are, those commissioning have erred on the side of caution in their choice of big-name architects. Soon after Facebook's announcement, Google revealed that architects NBBJ were to add a set of huge new buildings in Mountain View. Meanwhile, up in Seattle, Amazon has plans for its own new base -- three towers set around three huge glass bubbles. All of which suggests that, unlike their European counterparts, the US tech giants are, at heart, just as conservative and ego-driven as the rulers of the old economy.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
