I'm going back to school full time this fall and I've worked out this sort of situation with my current job. I don't work in the design field, yet, though. Just a regular office. Well, maybe not regular.

Anyway, a lot of my work deals with communications with the Thai office, and so, it's better for me to be at the computer signed into MSN messenger at 11pm my time than to be at the office at 9am my time. Between internet, scanners, fax and the good old fashioned telephone, there is no reason why I should have to clock in at the office. I'm the only one at the office who has worked out the deal, I don't think they'd be comfortable with the entire office being dispersed this way. But, maybe you could present the idea of people working in shifts... maybe you go into the office 12 hours a week, and stagger the shifts so that the entire staff is never present at one time.

The other thing to work out is the cost efficiency. My boss pays for half of my already established DSL account and all phone calls to Thailand or any work related calls. Plus I have to come into the office to pilfer the office supplies. It might not be cost effective for your employers to do this for every last employee.

And my home computer has been hooked up to the network, and RAdmin... which means at anytime my boss can check in on me and see what's on my screen. He's promised to keep this only to the times when I'm "clocked in" but it requires a little trust on my part. Overall the whole deal requires a lot of trust on his part.

Ocean tried to do this, inter-continentally. They were essentially a group of far-flung AA grads that wished to work together despite the distance between them. I'm not sure how well it's worked for them. In fact, I'm not sure they're all still collaborating.

Here's a link for oceanD (oceanUK + oceanUS), I not sure what the urls for the other ocean spin-offs are, or if they still exist. They may have assumed other names by this point, or been dissolved.

A couple of our consultants have a semi virtual office and seems to work very well. I have considered it for a few projects where I have some contracted out staff doing specific tasks. I wouldn't do it for a junior person who needs supervision etc but I tend to do it for a specific scope of work and set fee. that way they feel that there is some pressure for the work to be completed on a schedule and they have the responsibility they desire. I can definitely see it playing a major part in how this offices functions over the future.

Once I heard a sociologist speak about the trend of people working more time from out of the home. He pointed out that one common assumption is that it is more ecological because it reduces transport time and energy. Contrary to the assumption though, his research found that people working at home all day take more short trips during off-peak hours for both work and personal reasons. The total energy load in many cases added up to a higher figure than what the individual previously consumed. The quantity of digital communications devices was supposed to make location irrelevant, but if you study busines travelers you see that work is more global and they end up spending more and more time flying all over the place.
I have mixed feelings about working at home. I wrote almost my whole thesis from home; at times it's peaceful but it can also be hard to concentrate. The lack of physical social contact at times can be totally weird.

Perhaps this may work for many offices but in my office (which isn't an architecture office) most of the work gets done by spontaneous interactions not directly affiliated with work. We are big believers in serendipity and I think that by working at home you may lose chance encounters were ideas, analysis, and criticism can flow more freely then over the phoneline. Or perhaps we are just luddites but it's something to keep in mind.

We're virtual here @ HTDSTUDIO, for close to 4 yrs now. Partner also working out of the crib in IRELAND. Quite busy w/ alot of (real) projects (+- $17m) worth of construction for 3Q 2004. Hope to be subletting space from my friend's sick office overlooking Union Square in the Fall.

microsoft does it... in fact a former client never even went into the office there.

That's what I do, for the most part. I work in the offices (at two different firms) part time and at home part time. It's very nice and works out well, but I do mostly 3D, so it's a little different.

I've worked on a few competitions via internet and phone, and it's tough. Without being able to sketch your ideas quickly, hand the trace to the next person, and talk about it (not to mention designing with a few beers and friends is always a little more fun!), it slows things down.
I think it's ideal for some aspects of the business, and can save a lot of cash/time with office space and commuting.

One other consideration is the hardware/softare issues. At an office, you have a server and a setup to back it all up, take the tapes offsite, etc. Online things are a lot slower and would take a lot of coordination to get it backed up. But you could do it, set up a quality extranet and all.

The idea of sharing office space, maybe even server/hardware, is a great idea.

mbr, if thats the route you want to go check out Essex Street Studios in NY started by LTL. It's 4-6 small firms renting desks and sharing some costs.

Essex Street is a great model, but it is also rare (LTL's venture is the only one that I know of) and consequently very popular. We need more incubator spaces like that.

Superman: of course I don't know the size of your firm, cost of various elements of overhead, etc. But I know that the situation in most firms with which I've been involved has much less to do with the physical office setup, and more to do with the costs (beyond salaries) to employ people. The costs of the employer's share of payroll taxes, social security, the worker's comp insurance, unemployment insurance, and benefits like health coverage drive up the actual cost of each employee to at least 140% of their actual salary.

Are you proposing cutting most of these costs by turning everybody into a "consultant" without benefits? If so you'll probably have to up their hourly rates or at least some of them won't be able to afford the corresponding tax burden and loss of benefits.

Are you expecting all of the employees to provide their own computers and other equipment? If not then you'll actually be looking at additional equipment, not less, since employees may need faxes, printers, etc. which also may create duplication in the equipment that the firm owns.

Will the firm be paying for internet connections, phone calls, any additional travel, etc. that is now required of these work-at-home employees?

If the firm decides to send a lot of staff to work at home and then relocates to smaller quarters with lower utilities, etc. then there may be a savings there. Fewer in-house employees usually leads to a small savings on some types of business insurance. What else do you anticipate that you will save on by this arrangement?

right on ormolu. was going to offer that thought earlier but decided to hear if anyone was going to go down that path. and well, excuse me. but while i may like to chat silently with you all once in a while, i miss your dainty little smiles,... ...how you can get coffee for me once in awhile and the social interaction that my vpn dis-connection fails to offer. i like people.

JG - thanks for that info about LTL. I've heard of things like this, and know of at least one similar arrangement in LA (can't recall the name).

I am interested in the proposition of shared space. Tough to start, I imagine, but the idea of a more liquid business model is very intriguing.

my wifes father used to work for a company in wisconsin - i think it was called phillips - automotive plastics and other design components, that does the incubator thing. i was fascinated by the proposition of a firm providing space, access to equipment and other resources, in order to help get fledgling ideas off the ground. all they asked for, if i remember correctly, is some share of the profits of the venture. i keep thinking how cool it would be if more firms in architecture would see beyond petty issues and promote or support ideas like this...

Wow, I'm overwhelmed with the responses here... thanks everyone.

I'll have to reply later with a better response..... no time now.

I'll give some more detail about our firm; we have 6 employees (2 principals). The principals and one other architect do the majority of the business management, design development and site related work. The other three (including me) are more or less just support staff. We currently occupy a large, expensive space in downtown Toronto.

My idea is that we rent a smaller space large enough for the 2 principals, and nothing more. Our server could be hosted elsewhere, our phone/voice mail system would be virtual and mobile. Anything that occupies alot of space (archived files, materials, old presentations and models, product library) would be kept in a storage facility. Meetings with support staff and clients could be held anywhere (boardroom space can be rented easily at the Design Exchange, or somewhere else). Communication between staff would channel through cell phones, and more importantly with instant messaging. File transfer and the idea presentation would be facilitated with a website.

Or better yet, even the principals work from home. Simply put, technology is/can make expensive office space obsolete. Certainly it's not a perfect solution, but its a fascinating one.

Ormolu - thats a good point about having everyone as consultants... I certainly wouldn't want that, but it would compliment the idea of a virtual office. Which reminds me, the other major benefit of going virtual is the flexibility it offers. Thats a whole other topic!

maintenance costs will be the downfall. If its done per project base (like I did at studio 07) its alot easier, because you consult services. But this is only economical on a small basis. As work increases it becomes more difficult to manage.

Nice tho working from home. Except ppl always know where to find you.

the "studio" is an important place...
that being said the "studio" does not always have to be a physical place.
have accesible servers and a voice mail system etc. does not a studio make

i do alot of work from home (freelance) afterhours and weekends, but it is mostly CD work (boring) this is work that can be done pretty much anywhere and these phases of work are best suited to being done out of the office or at home etc (or in india or china by your lesser paid mates)

at least for me the 'designing' needs a place to call home where things can be started and stopped and left to simmer and come back to etc.

im sure there is a marked difference in the design studio, design office and plain old office. Both in how you think about those place (where you work)and how the boss or whomever thinks of the place. Reminiscent of the discussions on 'office culture'

what is the 'office culture' in a virtual office/studio?

that being said I soon will be working from home all the time, looking for a space to call a studio and calling my laptop the 'office' and calling myself boss.

werd

I find it odd to want to down grade space from a 6 person office to a space for just two people. I have a similar size office and 6 is a great size. I thought your moving from some large number 20 + to 12 might be a good. move. the moves sounds really cheap skate to get down to two person office. I find the client expectations still like the idea of seeing people in chairs etc. if only two people sit in chairs it might seem as though you don't have enough horsepower to pull off a larger job. I wouldn't underestimate the issue that it creates I have faced it time and time again from larger clients who respect our skill and experience but don't feel we have the man power to meet schedule.

I like the idea of the virtual office less for overhead costs but more for flexibility and keeping a core group thatis present in the space and have the nimbleness to ramp up or down with extra consultants as required. I like the lean structure that it enables us to have.

I would also warn "consultants" and employers from trying to avoid the tax man etc by claiming that they are a self employed consultant when you have 80 5 of your income from a single source. I went to a seminar a while back and it is a fine line and most people are still technically an employee when they think are should be a consultant. Ask you accountant or check with the local employment standards branch.

To talk it up

http://www.duke.edu/~mccann/q-work.htm#Work%20in%20Cyberspace

however, I think that the practice of architecture in the real world will always fix the Architect in reality. How much the profession integrates into a virtual office will depend upon the interactions with others. If the areas of society that do not have access to a computer become ghettoised; then the interconnectivity everyone talks about is nothing more than bull!

i dont know why most people are thinking in the extremes - office, or no office....i know some people who follow a middle path:

the office consists of 5 people, but to cut overheads, the two principals have rented a studio, that has essentially a conference table, a plotter and the library. all the other people take the work home and meet up when they have to in the office and discuss over drawings on the conference table. other times they use mainly fax, and instant messenger.
an interesting this is that they use the shit out of Adobe Acrobat, and use the annotation/notes tool like crazy...
i think this model works pretty well, but at the same time, its kinda important for all the people to have laptops to have a seamless work flow..

my 56 cents

The idea is fantastic. One problem I've noticed is no one ever really works out the external contact very well, like the phone. There are more wireless plans presently, but nothing is the same as picking up a phone and just getting a receptionist.

an interesting sidenote is how in sci-fi movies teleconferencing or telecommuting predated by decades what we are talking about now; one only has to look at the old Flash Gordon serials, 007, or Darth Vader choking someone in realtime over the monitor. And look how well things worked out for the Galactic Empire.

Superman -

I think you are on to something, but there is a lot of good feedback here. There are a couple of points that can be made from all of the comments:

1.) What works for one office, doesn't necessarily work for another.

2.) There are advantages and disadvantages to working in a studio/office environment or working from home.

You have the advantage of working with only 5 other people, so it isn't a mind-numbing task to figure out some work patterns, and analyze the office culture, as it exists now. Architecture is a diverse field and there are a number of things that can be worked on in an independent home environment, especially production work. However, anyone that is involved in the design process is going to be jumping logistical hurdles to work from home, and it's clear that you lose important social interaction in the home environment.

One note about your situation, is that it would seem part of what is driving you to work on this project, is that you would like to work from home. I would consider the fact, that it likely makes more sense if the principals can work from home...I'm just saying you should think about the different scenarios about what is best for your firm, and I bet the principals will go for it. It could be that the office is set up like a conference room like someone else suggested, and you have enough space that can accommodate all 6 of you if necessary, but it more likely fits 3 comfortably...the idea being that it encourages people to get out of the office.

Regardless, this kind of set-up only works for specific types of people...it certainly wouldn't work for an intern, where it's important to have someone to answer questions. It also doesn't work for people that aren't self-motivated, or very smart...these people need hand holding.

As far as Microsoft goes, that is a completely different environment...the People I know that do this are programmers, and they work on a wi-fi network at the local coffee shop...all they need is a laptop...The interesting thing here, isn't that they are able to work from home, but that they choose to work in a different social environment...

I would be curious how the numbers play out...It's my suspicion that the rent/space savings is offset by the added cost in technical flexibility.