Knoll Co-Sponsors Stanford University Course on Workplace and Public Life

A course at Stanford University, co-sponsored by Knoll, is exploring the intersection between work and public space in a series of three "immersives" led by design and workplace leaders. The course, entitled "Situated Work and Public Life," takes place in the university's winter quarter and forms the second half of a joint design research project between Stanford University's Architectural Design program and the Northeastern University School of Architecture. 

Tracy Wymer, Vice President Workplace, Knoll, instructs the course, along with Jordan Kanarek and Allison Arieff. Kanarek is a user experience and product design consultant; Arieff is Editorial Director for SPUR, an urban planning and policy think tank, and a contributing columnist to The New York Times. Each of the instructors leads an immersive with a specific focus around the changing relationships between workplace and public space.

Wymer leads the first immersive, "Privately-Owned Public Open Space (POPOS) at Work," examining the role, if any, of urban POPOS in supporting work, and asking students to project new roles for POPOS in planning places of work. The second and third immersives will analyze the role of public space in co-working and corporate campuses. 

The course is supported by six sponsors in workplace design and related industries, including Knoll. Knoll is also sponsored a series of critical workplace design studios at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. The report for the first studio in the series was published in November of 2015.