Working Outdoors

As summer winds down, Herman Miller Lifework posts a question and a roundup of  outdoor work spaces. An Aeron Chair in a zen garden looks pretty sexy in a photo; but could you actually do computer work there? Let's hope the sprinkler timer is off!

Get the full story HERE
 Here at Whereuwork we remain uneasy about knitting widely different work and leisure activities together. Is anything gained by 'working' on an ipad in a park? We suspect that both realms are diminished - one's appreciation of nature as well as one's ability to do meaningful work. Multitasking can be overrated.

Letterpress Fetish

Letterpress printing has a cult status among graphic artists. It is mythical, reaching back in time to when printing was a very physical act - before the clicking & dragging disconnect of digital art and web pages.

Paul Shaw from Print magazine recently spent a weekend near Milan with Lucio Passerini, an Italian typographer of some reknown, and he wrote up a nice non-print profile of their visit. What Whereuwork likes so much about this report is the focus on Lucio's workshop - Il Buon Tempo - the physical space where he creates.

Type Banks

My childhood Saturdays were often spent playing in the pressroom of a weekly newspaper. My father was editor, reporter and chief bottle-washer in a pre-offset world. The smells of molten lead, ink-soaked wood and crisp newsprint come rushing back to me, looking at this photo.I long for the physical constructs of the printed word.

Get the full story here - IMPRINT

How Skinny can you go?

Keret House, Warsaw

 With much of this country reeling from McMansion overload, designers have focused on going small for home and office. But Jakub Szczesny takes it to a new level with his Keret House in Warsaw, Poland. It is so small, so narrow that it defies description. We like that he called it an art project and thereby avoided building codes - Art Power! The question remains - how much is too little? Could you really live or work here without flipping out?

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Is there Creative Life Beyond the Cubicle?

Does anyone actually work here?

 Allison Arieff, former editor of Dwell magazine, design maven and NY Times blogger, examines the stark differences between  the image of the office cubicle, as promoted by high-design modular furniture companies, and the down to earth, ad-hoc places where many creatives actually do their work. She asked the provocative question, is there a better big-new-idea than the cubicle - and boy did she get responses. Most people railed against the cube, a few suggested only a private closed office will do; but no-one really described anything remotely new or different.

Making it real: a creative comfort zone

Ideas about work spaces range from interesting to absurd, but we are always curious to see the actual places where creative people work. Most telling was Andrew Berardini's musing on his own, very real desk.The differences between the real and the ideal seem to be vast.
Get the full story here: Beyond the Cubicle