At the office

At the office

If Were to catalogue comedy taking place in an office, it would result into a huge list relating to the social aspects of office life. Tati's Playtime also focuses on the physical aspects of the modern office and the alienation it may cause. The enormous, purpose-built set that contributed to Tati's bankruptcy following the making of this film is quite often not the background but the subject to the comedy. The only problem is that while Tati once again points out the absurdity of what we take for progress, his solution seems to be just regression to earlier patterns of life. He may have been right, though: office life hasn't improved much since the making of this film, despite repeated promises, including recent attempts and informality and playfulness.

This is evident in a more recent film, where physical aspects also play a prominent role: Office space. It's a film primarily about bullying: how office layout can be used to oppress people. It is quite different from Playtime but it too makes clear how the peripersonal space that dominates human activities and interactions in an office never fails to affect us. If one wants to harm us, they'll find many opportunities in our peripersonal space.

So, I come to the idea that Tati, despite his masterly grasp of affordances, couldn't give us an alternative because Playtime was less about peripersonal space and more about architectural style and the wider cultural changes associated with it. As for architects, this space remains a major challenge. Until they manage to focus on it and find some solutions, comedy will make thankful use of office spaces.

Transparency makes a difference

Transparency makes a difference 

It's fun going back to a building one used to know after a refurbishment; it's even more fun to visit during the refurbishment. It used to be an odd building, a contradictory combination of generous, sunny and light communal spaces and small, dark, almost claustrophobic office wings. Now the former VROM ministry building by Jan Hoogstad at Rijnstraat 8, The Hague, is about to begin its second lease of life, as the renovation on the basis of a design by OMA (in collaboration with Hoogstad) is almost complete. When the contractor organised a visiting day, I couldn't miss the opportunity.

Quite a lot has changed (including the vertical circulation cores) but nevertheless many features of the original design remain recognisable. There's lots of glass everywhere; almost all internal partitions are now transparent, affording some daylight even in deep in the building as well as nice views of the city centre around (not that everything you see is necessarily beautiful) but these will be probably reduced once people and their stuff clutter up the building (by the way, lots of furniture is already in the building, collecting dust from the building activities - some logistic cockup?).

Strangely, the new stairs have a rather shallow tread. I wonder if it's according to building regulations and even more when architects will learn to design stairs without blindly following established nonsense like Blondel's formula and use their own eyes and feet to measure things. My 46-size shoes don't fit on these treads.

One thing I don't miss is the old radiators, which used to hang at illogical positions behind the curtain walls (even at eye height or higher); everything is now hidden in the floor or the ceiling. Thankfully, the designers appear to have added a couple of other jokes.

Leaving the building I'm struck by the questionable entrance, especially the relative position of the two sets of revolving doors. I'll have to come back once the building is in operation to see how it goes.