With this focus, we have conducted interviews to find the possible form of the future workplace. We ask a few office workers their thoughts on “What will the future of work be like?” And we a few feedback such as “Hybrid working style is great but online communication needs to be improved” “I think we can work anywhere with wifi” and some said “I still like to have my own office space but with better lighting"

After the interview, the creative professionals (and office workers) were decided to be our target user group. I want to focus on helping them with their mental well-being because especially during this year, there's definitely some relatable pain points from working from home, such as, Less social opportunities, feeling stressed from working alone, not feeling creative or inspired, and the feeling of exhaustion from working all the time

What they want is to have flexible working hours and location, a safe co-working space, and find a better balance between home and office

With the feedback from the interview, we have also done researches around this area to find the problems of the current workplace. Then, we found out that improving on overall flexibility of a workplace can improve user’s mental well-being

There are three main problems in the current working mode. First, the location of working is not flexible for online and offline working. Working at the same place is creating boredom and anxiety. Moreover, changing working location is not an easy thing when people’s office is affected by the surrounding, for example, noise from the nearby construction site. These environmental factors will further build up stress and pressure and affect people’s mental well-being

The second problem is mostly discovered from remote working. People are mostly lonely when working remotely, and research has shown that working alone may increase stress and anxiety. Without sufficient social interaction, people may be agitated by some little problems they meet while working, and this is not good for their mental health.

The third problem is, it’s challenging to create structure in your relationship and work schedule when working at home. This may lead to the feeling of working 24/7. In this case, people cannot get enough rest to release the pressure they got from the continuous work, and this also damages people’s mental well-being.

So here is the problem statement. After identified the current mental health issues, we start to ask the question: “How might we design a safe and flexible workplace, which allows people to choose the location and mode of working, for the future?”

Our team discussed and came up with a possible solution “mobile office” to protect people’s mental health while working.

In fact, mobile office is not a new idea for providing people different working styles. We have analysed some existing mobile offices with their advantages and disadvantages. Here we have listed the main weakness. The most common one is the portable working table installed on the car, but the comfortability is less considered because of the limited space in the car.. And this could not satisfy the demand of working with other people. There are also some open area working spaces which allows for corporate work but enclosed space is not safe in the case of pandemic. Based on these analysis, our mobile office mainly aims to satisfy the demand of different working modes, either working individually or corporately.

After multiple brainstorming sessions, researches and idea voting, we’ve also spent some time on concept sketching and try to visualise our ideas to each other.

So how can our idea solve the existing problems? As our mobile office would be movable, the users are able to choose their desired working location. With this function, the working anxiety caused by the fixed location could be reduced.

We have done some research about why nature has a restorative effect on our psyche and we were trying to include biophilic design in our mobile office. There are many types of research showing that employees who work in an environment with elements such as natural light and live plants can achieve a higher level of well-being.

Greenery and sunlight are the main ingredients in the biophilic design. Our biophilic design includes an adjustable sunlight system so the users can access enough sunlight while working remotely in this office. The movable function allows users to drive into nature and exposure to nature can reduce blood pressure, muscle tension, and stress hormones.

The docking function of our mobile office creates flexible ways for social interaction and co-working space. Users could choose the docking mode when they need to have face to face discussion with other people. The docking mode could reduce the stress caused by working alone. Also, users could choose to independent mode to maintain personal space in the case of a pandemic.

The mobile office is a professional working environment that creates a difference between home and work. Since the function and internal design are different from home, a mental borderline would be created. And the users won’t be stress about the commute time with this type of office in the future.

After subscribing to the remote office plan, people could work in the remote office. The function of this office provides a safer way to interact with each other. And with the social sharing mode, users can interact in a safe distance and environment.

People could choose the working location at any time and find a place where they work most comfortably. The home and office are separated so people could have more personal space. This office could reduce stress levels by having social connections and flexibility of working in a different environment of your choice.

In terms of the design ideation, this mobile office is Inspired by biophilic design with organic and sustainable images. In addition, connect each their mobile office was inspired from docking system.

Users are able to choose different working modes. Our mobile office can be joined together but each is self-isolated. There is a honeycomb pattern on the windshield that can be emphasized biophilic design.

There are some of the images which are made through 3d and able to show independent mode and connected mode with visualization. Users can go everywhere not only in general places but also in nature. They can work with each other in a diverse places.

After designed the mobile office, we have sent out questionnaires to find the feedback of our target user group. In total, we got some feedback from 33 participants. In the questionnaire, we asked them to rate the functions of their helpfulness in mental health. As shown in the slide, on average, the feedback to the movable function and the docking function is really positive. All of them are higher than the average of 3, which indicates that the user thinks they are really useful to improve their mental health.