PLACES FOR A WORK-ETHIC - AN APPRAISAL OF AMERICAN WORKPLACE DESIGN AND RESEARCH

The subject of this paper is modern American office buildings and the effects these structures have had on office workers and the nature of work. The high-rise office structure has been called America's primary contribution to building prototypes in architecture and has been replicated in one form or another in almost all world cultures. It has redefined and reshaped the aesthetics and economics of the modern urban landscape. As the nature of work moves from the product orientation of the industrial age to an economy of data exchange, office buildings will replace the shop, store, and factory as the dominant symbol of the commercial city. The central argument of the paper is that the ways in which these structures have evolved over the past forty years in the American context have failed to reflect and support basic values of work. The question posed here is how these building types affect American traditions and patterns of work. The use of the term work ethic conveys a philosophical as well as descriptive meaning. The nature of work in America will be reviewed and an analysis of workplace design will be presented in response to this review. It will be argued that the dominant models of design and analysis used by architects and environmental researchers have focused too narrowly on instrumental aspects of the workplace and have ignored the broader implications of American culture and social processes.