Table Of ContentUta Brandes & Michael Erlhoff (Eds.)
My Desk
is my Castle
Exploring Personalisation Cultures
Authors
Nadine Adrian, Jan Blum, Bastian Boss, Andreas Breilmann, King-chung Siu,
Tina Engels-Schwarzpaul, Sofia Fernández, David Gödel, Sabrina Halbe,
Vera Hausmann, Anne-Mette Krolmark, Katharina Leistenschneider,
Mara E. Martínez Morant, Carla Otto, Anne Kathrin Rochna, Tanja Steinebach,
Nadine Wessler, Daniel Zander
Birkhäuser
Basel
Uta Brandes
Michael Erlhoff
Nadine Adrian
Advisors and Participants Jan Blum
Bastian Boss
Andreas Breilmann
Sofia Fernández
City
David Gödel
Advisor(s)
Sabrina Halbe
Student(s)
Vera Hausmann
Katharina Leistenschneider
Carla Otto
Anne Kathrin Rochna
Tanja Steinebach
Nadine Wessler Cologne (Germany)
Daniel Zander
Luisa Collina Milan (Italy)
Fiammetta Costa
New York (USA)
Jonsara Ruth Elena Rovati
Anne-Mette Krolmark
Mara E. Martínez Morant
Sara Guilarte Arizkuren Barcelona (Spain)
Lídia Embid Balsells
Guillem Rodriguez Bernat
Gerard Porres Canals
Berta Belascoain Comaposada
Elisenda de Tomás Creix
Luz Marina Ariza Dualde
Jennifer Moreno Espelt
Berta Aillón Folch
Mariona Ruaix Martí
Irene Serrano Robredo
Laura Navau Sabanés
Ronaldo de Oliveira Corrêa
Ken Flávio Ono Fonseca
Henrique Baptista Corrêa
Eduardo Ponzoni Dognini
Erika Hegenberg
Rodrigo Mazurek Krüger Curitíba (Brazil)
Bruna de Souza Michelin
João Pedro Marques Mion
Marcio Fagundes de Oliveira Pimentel
Mariana Amaral Tomaz
Wan-Ru Chou Haly Huang
Ahbiee Chen Oliver Huang
Song Chen Wilson Huang
Kirs Chang Chien Megan Ko Henry Liu
Shamtic Guo Mingming Lee Light Luo
Raymond Hong Chih-Ching Li Pony Ma
Minako Ikeda
Bryan Hsieh David Li Yu-Hao Peng
Yoshiko Houkabe
Chun-Yen Hsieh Frank Li Kevin Seng
Yuka Kobayashi
Lisa Hsieh Natasha Li Super Weng
Keigo Kuwano
Sky Hsu Sheng-Da Li Jeff Weng
Takahiro Misawa
Moses Hu Vanshr Li Kaichu Wu
Hiroaki Ohnishi
Grace Huang Anita Liao Elt Xu
Pilar Camila Zarate Ortiz
Tower Liao Wuba Yang
Yuri Uemura
Huey Lien Jamie Yao
Fukuoka (Japan) Iwama Yasuhiro
Xin-Feng Lien Robin You
Kensei Yarimizu
Cyrus Lin Woody Young
Anne Krefting
Nathan Lin Eliaot Zhang
Léa-Jeanne Sachot
Tno Lin Avon Zheng Taipei (Taiwan)
Participants
Daniel Liu John Zhuang
Cairo (Egypt) Engy Allam
Nervana Diab
Yasmin Kandil
King-chung Siu
Khadiga Sany
Yoko Budijanto Hong Kong
Yomna Seodi
Christiantine Chan
Nour Tawfikqo
Karen Bobo Chan
Sindy Chan
Dhimant Panchai Karen Cheng
Sakhi Bansal Pune (India) Haru Cheung
Priyanshi Bhargava Chin Chin
Kishore Kumar Winny Choi
Pranay Ratan Sarah Chui Tina Engels-Schwarzpaul
Ashish Sanklecha Kelvin Chung Nabiha Buksh
Chaitanya Shete Eric Kung Justine Bulog
Bharat Singhal Anna Lam Jeffrey Chen
Heena Trivedi Rachel Lau Wenjuan Chu
Annie Law Dominique Dick
Keziah Law Mima El-khopary
Corinna Law Aimee Joe
Eil Lo Frances Kim
Shelagh Ng Raie Kim
Carol Pak Cathy Lee
Marco So Jee Su Lee
Cindy Suen Nan Li
Ling Tam Lu Liu
Kanas Tsang Ludoic Maignot
Carol Yeung Briana Mellsop
Mona Yip Sunita Patel
Helen Yu Sophie Paul Auckland (New Zealand)
Dana Qasem
Katie Scott
Nicole Taylor
Audrey Wee
Joshua Wilson
Sheila Ye
Translation from German into English: Susanne Dickel and Tim Danaher
Copy editing:
Clara Sofia Fernández, David Gödel, Vera Hausmann, Daniel Zander
Layout, cover design and typography:
Clara Sofia Fernández, David Gödel, Vera Hausmann, Daniel Zander
Book Production:
ActarBirkhäuserPro
Barcelona - Basel
www.actarbirkhauserpro.com
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress,
Washington D.C., USA.
Bibliographic information published by the German National Library
The German National Library lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbiblio-
grafie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the
whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, re-use of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting,
reproduction on microfilms or in other ways, and storage in databases.
For any kind of use, permission of the copyright owner must be obtained.
Distribution:
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Barcelona - Basel - New York
www.actarbirkhauser-d.com
© 2011 Birkhäuser GmbH, Basel
P.O. Box, 4002 Basel, Switzerland
Part of ActarBirkhäuser
Printed on acid-free paper produced from chlorine-free pulp. TCF �
Printed in Spain
ISBN 978-3-0346-0774-2
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Table of Contents
About This Book — 9
Action Space ‘Office’ — 13
Research Methodology — 23
The Places — 33
Four Representative Business Sectors — 43
The Clusters — 47
Little Number Games — 51
Intercultural Comparison — 55
Object Worlds as Gender Staging — 91
Comparative Analysis of the Business Sectors — 127
The Desk as a Thriller — 169
Personal Office Upgrades — 177
The Desk as a Geodesic Space — 187
King-chung Siu: The Desk as a Miniature World of Events
and Identities: Musings from Hong Kong — 197
Tina Engels-Schwarzpaul: Gobalised Desktop Skirmishes?
Reporting from the Colonies — 210
Visions — 229
The Concepts of ‘Public’ and ‘Private’ — 231
Mara E. Martìnez Morant: Reflections on Anthropology and Design — 239
From Chessboards to Monopoly Games — 253
Anne-Mette Krolmark: The New York Experience — 261
Potential Practical Design Implications — 301
Bibliography — 313
Authors — 318
Kolumnentitel
C
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8
About this Book
The offi ce is indeed a meaningful space: a space of action, a space
offering possibilities for communication and consultancy and much
more besides. That’s why there are numerous books and studies on
the subject, why many design studios work in the fi eld of offi ce design,
why there are different trade shows on offi ce management and design
and why there are very many companies focusing on offi ce interiors.
But what might be even more important is a different perspective on
offi ce life based on the fact that most of us are familiar with offi ces,
be it as workers or clients. This not only entails a routine ‘knowledge’
or experience of how offi ces work but also – especially as a visitor, cli-
ent or customer – the frequent impression of having entered a private
space upon which you are intruding. And those who work in these offi ces
know (at least secretly) that these spaces are indeed formulated in very
special – and also somehow in very private or at least individual – ways.
It is exactly this privatisation and individualisation of offi ce space with
all its complex dimensions that is the subject of this book. Or, looking
at it from a different angle: these forms of privatisation represent, in
terms of research and design, an exciting opportunity for the observa-
tion, representation and analysis of cultural diversity, the differences
between the various business sectors and special characteristics
based on gender-defi ned connotations. Especially when looking
closely at how we use all these designed things on or around our desk-
tops, we become aware of the differences that have developed on the
basis of socio-cultural and gender aspects and in various strategies of
appropriation.
So the fi ndings presented in this book should allow us to better un-
derstand our own workplace or, at times, simply be amazed by how
others make themselves at home in the offi ce and what kind of virtual
individual dramas are played out on our desktops. Simultaneously,
C
a
iro however, this book provides exemplary and well-grounded insights into
, A
d an important area of design research that, with its unique social and
m
in analytic abilities, provides signifi cant support in understanding our
is
tra present-day societies and their complexity.
tio
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9
About this Book
It is also important to mention how this book came about: it was
created in the context of a student project at the Köln International
School of Design (KISD), during which the concept and, based on
initial studies, the questions for further research were developed. We
then used our international network to select other universities offer-
ing qualitative design education, and asked the respective faculties
whether they were interested in participating in this study. Such an
intercultural comparison is extremely important in localising the real-
ity of everyday life behind the more general theses on globalisation.
Getting such a project off the ground certainly was a lot of work, and
we had to circumvent numerous bureaucratic hurdles. But, as you can
see by the results documented in this book, eventually students and
faculty from five continents and from 11 countries participated in this
project with a great deal of enthusiasm and commitment. Participants
came from Auckland (New Zealand), Barcelona (Spain), Cairo (Egypt),
Cologne (Germany), Curitíba (Brazil), Fukuoka (Japan), Hong Kong,
Milan (Italy), New York (USA), Pune (India, formerly known as Poona or B
a
Puna) and Taipei (Taiwan). – You can find the complete list of schools rc
e
lo
and participants at the beginning of this book. This list contains an un- n
a
usually large number of names appearing in connection with various , Ad
m
roles, because we wanted to explicitly name everyone who has contrib- in
is
uted to the creation of this book: students who took photographs and tra
cooperated in organising the material, workshop leaders who provided tion
, F
introductions to our empiricist approach in many countries, faculty e
m
a
members at the various schools who made the project possible and le
supervised its implementation and, of course, everyone who contrib-
uted any texts or visuals.
As you will see, this cooperation has resulted in fantastic studies, visu-
als and analyses. We hope that, besides being an entertaining read,
this book will provide the reader with new insights and perspectives
and might even contribute to a more thoughtful and humane future
office design.
We would like to thank all students and faculty of the participat-
ing universities, the International Office of the Cologne University of
Applied Arts (which provided the bursaries to cover the researchers’
travel expenses), and we would also like to thank Susanne Dickel and
Tim Danaher for the translation of the German articles and Robert
Steiger for supervising the production of this book.
Uta Brandes, Michael Erlhoff
10
