The elaborate façade and red sandstone were the cutting edge of style of its time: when Glasgow’s first evening newspaper opened its doors in 1889, it wrote its own headlines.
Beyond its fancy Dutch Renaissance-style exterior – designed by architect T L Watson, who was also behind several of the city’s churches – was a maze of separate departments, sprawling offices and even had space for the huge, rumbling printing presses.
It was one of the first red sandstone buildings in the city; within a couple of years, it would burn brightly as one of Glasgow’s first fully electric buildings.
The Evening Citizen is long gone; however, a recent revamp of the St Vincent Place building’s top four floors has seen it again hailed as at the very cutting edge of modern office design.
Having been rebooted into a series of six separate workplaces – with bland false ceilings removed to expose interesting architectural details, soundproofed booths for video calls, arty references to its former newspaper life and ‘home from home’ comforts – it is said to reflect new demand for a post-pandemic, hybrid style of working in offices that owe more than a little to television’s Grand Designs.
Others see a more balanced way of working: new research from global workplace creation specialists, Unispace, says more than 60% of employees are choosing to work remotely or in a hybrid way.
While most seem to have become used to tumbling out of bed and being at their desks: more than three quarters surveyed said they would like only a five to ten minutes’ commute to the office.
Home comforts are also high on their list: the survey of 3,000 office workers across Europe showed 95% felt their workspace needed to improve to create a more desirable environment, with outdoor spaces to work in, areas for social gatherings, and distinct places to collaborate in or retreat to for quiet space.
It might not go as far as Google office sleep pods and retro…
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