A workplace strategist, creative designer and enthusiastic social entrepreneur, Tatiana Gomez will talk about the future of workforces in the upcoming Knowledge of Design Week. As a Workplace Knowledge Consultant based in Asia for the past 11 years, Tatiana has earned a wealth of fourteen years of professional experience, working in different fields of design and consultancy such as urban planning, workplace design, landscape architecture to project management.
Image credit: The Creative Services Company
Tatiana Gomez, Workplace Consultant of Herman Miller | Hong Kong
Session: ‘THE WORK EXPERIMENT’: LEADING FUTURE WORKFORCE
Can you share a little about yourself?
I am originally a trained architect, with a master’s degree in Urban Planning, hailing all the way from South America, studied in Austria and Czech republic before moving to London and finally landing in Asia eleven years ago. This career and life path have given me the opportunity to work in different cultures and languages and experience diverse ways of working in the field of design.
What inspires you?
Nature and surroundings, each single thing around us has the power to inspire and nurture our senses. Every place has a particular unique smell, food, colours. I find inspiration in people and culture.
What is your design philosophy?
Detailed simplicity, less is more, focus on the details to create a great master piece.
Can you tell us about your work?
I work for Herman Miller, an American manufacturing furniture company. With over 100 years in the market, it has inspired 20th century office and residential design. I am part of the Workplace Performance Services, working as a Workplace Consultant merging my expertise and experience in the field of design and built, with strategy and data analysis to bring to our customers consultancy service for workplace design. My current role at HM is to consolidate and grow our team and consultancy services in the Asia Pacific region linking it directly to our core team based in North America, and the team for Latin America. To date, my job has taken me to places such as Bangalore, Manila and Singapore.
You will be one of the key speakers at KODW. Can you tell us about what you will be sharing during your session?
We will be sharing our point of view and market research findings about the future of workplaces, design planning and design predictions.
How has product design change for workplaces over the years? What are the key trends?
One of the key elements incorporated into the design of workplaces is well being. Herman Miller has always characterised for being a forward thinking company that is not only looking a beautifully made product, but their impact on people.
Looking at the evolution of the workplace you can clearly see a continuous search on ergonomics, biophilia, well supported dynamic spaces with multiple choices and options not only in the spaces and furnishing but the Technology integration with the space itself. We have seen air quality controlled systems, temperature check cameras, newly developed apps, booking systems, smart lighting and acoustic systems that are part of the experience of being in a workplace. Regarding design, the biggest trend in the past 5 years has been the “Hospitalization” of the workplace, which means creating workplaces that take elements from Hotel and retail design, basically creates the experiences found in commercial interior design, incorporates and blends it in an office space.
What do you think the design trends for workplaces will be in this “new normal”?
Spaces will become more meaningful, collaborative and flexible. What this quarantine has taught us all, is that we are social creatures and need face to face interaction. Data indicates that even thought, people seem to be more productive at home, we are longing to return to the workplace for the sense of belonging to a community. The keywords for me will be Flexibility and Autonomy.
What do you think is the best way to use design to engineer a better world to live in post-pandemic?
Re-evaluating the way we plan from macro to micro, from cities down to buildings and interior spaces, everything is co-related. Therefore design shall be a collaborative effort and integration of different sciences and expertise. We need to look not only to plan interior spaces but the systems and technology used in buildings, building orientation and landing in its surroundings, the dialogue between the outside and inside spaces, the air circulation flow and integration of latest technologies at our service, contact tracing, air quality, occupancy data pre – and post planning. I’ve personally feel we have been over provisioning cities with skyscrapers, with mega-structures that don’t have a natural dialogue with the environment and nature. Is time to go back to a more conscious way of planning and living.
What do you think of the current design scene in Asia?
I would say as we got the largest population in the world and probably one of the youngest work forces, Design scene is very daring, dynamic, uses loads of technology integration. This reflects not only on technology but in the acceptance of its people to embrace progressive new solutions.
Finally any advice to established as well as upcoming designers and those involved in the design industry?
Covid-19 has taught us that the speed in which we were living is not sustainable, please do invest time in researching and investigating when designing, there is no a magic formula, no one size fits all, design is subjective, however I would say design shall always serve a purpose and shall have an objective. If you have an idea, work on it, have fun whilst developing it, test it and try it, you shall enjoy designing, do it with passion. Remember “the process must be equal to the goal”.
Catch Tatiana Gomez’s session on August 28 2020. For more info log on to: https://www.kodw.org/en/event/the-work-experiment-leading-future-workforce/
