Why not? What if.

There was a time when talking about outdoor offices, about working while being outdoors in the urban nature would mainly raise questions, make people smile, met with a sense of unbelief and even with a light form of scepticism. Then there’s Charlotte Petersson Troije: the pionier scientist who has been researching this concept for more than 10 years. For an interview for Nola (the award winning urban spaces makers and community problem solvers) she confessed: One day, in June 2010, I got a real “Aha!” moment. It was during a walk outdoors with colleagues that I noticed how our conversations and ideas were flowing much better than usual. I thought, ‘Why not do this every day?’.

KantoorKaravaan

Midwest Amsterdam

The interactive research project StickUt (“Stick Out”) Malmö was later born. A multidisciplinary team collaborated with the municipality of Malmö to conduct between 2017 and 2019 the first groundbreaking research on ’outdoor working’. It was around that time we met Charlotte, her colleagues and a delegation from the municipality of Malmö. They were visiting Amsterdam and our friends from the Tipping Point Foundation saw a match. It was a match made in heaven: we were all still looking at examples and possibilities of taking work outdoors. 

Fast forward: in April 2021 the first article ‘Outdoor Office Work’ was accepted and published in the online magazine Frontiers. I invite you all to read it. Except the research findings, the article introduces many valuable resources for those interested to find out more about the role (urban) nature has on our mental and physical wellbeing. 

What’s next? Charlotte is currently preparing her PhD research in Work Life Science at Sweden’s Mälardalen University. She is also working together with designstudio Superlab. Superlab introduced the concept of the playful office; its main goal being the “study of the future workplace and of the furniture design of tomorrow”. 

It is May 2021. 

The past 10 years combinations of words such as ‘outdoor office’, ‘walking meetings’, ‘nature desks’, ‘wellbeing at work’, ‘take work in the urban nature’ or ‘playful office’ have become common. On May 27th people all over the world celebrate together the third edition of the Outdoor Office Day. The same day the Southern Sweden Design Days event kicks off. Nola will launch the furniture range Work developed using the scientific input of Superlab en Charlotte Petersson Troije.

The circle is round. Let’s take work outdoors. Every day. 

NOLA products are being imported to The Netherlands bij https://tjinco.nl/merken