Clive Wilkinson: The Theatre of Work

The modern workplace has evolved from a dehumanised cubicle landscape to spaces designed for intelligent human life. While utility and amenity are vastly improved, what advances have been made in building truly creative communities that spark creativity, knowledge sharing, and collaboration? Is the 21st-century office performing at its peak? Clive Wilkinson: The Theatre of Work proposes an intensified relationship between office users and the space they occupy. The new workspace should amplify and celebrate the activity of work and human community, and in the process, become a vital and compelling theatre.

In defining this new landscape, the author examines global developments in workplace thinking, historical antecedents, the performance touchpoints for the new office, and proposes seven humanistic principles that will inform a holistic design process. This process can bring the concept of theatre to fruition. Each of these principles is demonstrated through case studies of the work of his renowned design studio, Clive Wilkinson Architects (CWA), with rich iconography, diagrammatic strategy, and contextual ingenuity. The outcome of this process, with its multiple performative layers, effectively promotes elevating a corporate brief of basic needs and goals to a profoundly human-centred presentation of 'work as theatre'.