The workplace is an ever-evolving design challenge. With continuous upgrades in technology, advances in telecommunications and rising costs of commercial real estate, space for individual employees keeps shrinking'whether for assistants or executives. The average allotment per office worker fell from 225 square feet in 2010 to 176 square feet in 2012, and these days can go as low as 60 square feet. 

Chicago’s Garfield Park Conservatory is a historic structure known for its extensive botanical collections. For the next year, however, the nearly 90,000-square-foot glazed building will be home to a very different attraction—one that will illuminate the architecture of its contiguous display houses.

Developed to appeal to a creative labor pool, the year-old Newell Rubbermaid Design Center lies within southwest Michigan's hub of industrial design, just a stone's throw from internationally acclaimed manufacturers Haworth, Herman Miller, and Steelcase. 

Atlanta-based developer Jamestown wanted its Pacific Place office building, at 22 Fourth Street in downtown San Francisco, to appeal to young tech workers with a lobby similar to that of a hip hotel.

From Al Jazeera's London broadcast hub on the 16th floor of the Shard, staff and viewers enjoy panoramic skyline views. It was this vantage point that attracted the global media network to the Renzo Piano-designed tower, but its choice created challenges for architects John McAslan + Partners (JMP), which designed reception and workspaces, and Veech x Veech, responsible for the broadcast studio. 

A sign on the door of Dudley Dough, a soon-to-be opened caf' on the ground floor of Boston's recently inaugurated Bruce C. Bolling Municipal Building, advertises 'pizza, coffee, and economic justice.' This improbable menu gives a clue to the larger goals behind the construction of the 215,000-square-foot, six-story structure completed this past spring.