What does the ideal workplace look like?
At the ‘Transdisciplinary Workplace Research’ conference, experts from various disciplines discussed the social, psychological, technological and business aspects of workplace environments. New insights were presented, existing challenges addressed and debated.
The ‘Transdisciplinary Workplace Research’ (TWR) conference, an initiative of the network of the same name, took place from 2 to 5 September 2025 in Zurich. Its fifth edition was organised by the Workplace Management Research Group at the ZHAW Institute of Facility Management. More than 170 researchers and professionals from over 20 countries came together to discuss current issues related to workplace environments.
‘Third places’ as workplaces
Following the pre-conference workshops on Wednesday, the official programme started on Thursday, 3 September, with two keynote speeches. Tim Reusch, Head of Workspace Innovation at Vitra, insisted on a beta mindset when designing workplace environments: “It doesn’t have to be perfect, because the unfinished enables creativity and learning among users.” Additionally, he addressed the growing importance of ‘third places’ as complementary workplaces alongside the office and the home office.
Key Kawamura, Co-founding Partner and CEO of Studio Banana, pointed out that many of today’s office concepts are still based on the fundamental assumptions of Taylorism. Although this organisational principle was developed for industrial production around 150 years ago, it still influences the design of workplace environments today. Kawamura therefore called for radical rethinking: “We need to start from scratch.” Using five future scenarios such as the ‘Upskilling Hut’ and the ‘Recharging Nest,’ he outlined possible alternatives and deliberately left their design to the imagination of the audience.
Sessions on design, collaboration, special needs and much more
The 18 conference sessions reflected the diversity of transdisciplinary workplace research. The focus was on hybrid work models, flexible office concepts, sustainability, digitalisation and inclusion issues. Several presentations showed that successful workplaces do not depend solely on their physical design, but also on organisational frameworks, individual needs and the flexibility to use different work locations. A key theme was how to design workplace environments to best support hybrid collaboration, knowledge sharing and employee well-being. The sessions highlighted that employees' experience at work is becoming increasingly important, mostly outweighing the value of mere physical presence in the office. At the same time, participants discussed how emerging technologies such as virtual reality, digital twins and AI-powered systems could help create workplaces that are more centred around users' needs.
The TWR 2026 made it clear that future-proof workplaces offer great potential. At the same time, it remains the task of research to better understand the causal relationships and continue to create evidence-based foundations for practice.
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