# Your Office Was Built for the Wrong Work | Rebecca Swanner | What the F is Happening to the Office?

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/what-the-f-is-happening-to-the-office-7601316/your-office-was-built-for-the-wrong-work-rebecca-swanner-what-the-f-is-happening-to-the-office
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/what-the-f-is-happening-to-the-office-7601316/your-office-was-built-for-the-wrong-work-rebecca-swanner-what-the-f-is-happening-to-the-office.md
Podcast: [What The F* is Happening to The Office?](https://stenobird.com/podcast/what-the-f-is-happening-to-the-office-7601316)
Published: 2026-05-14T15:38:07+00:00
Episode link: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/workdesign/episodes/Your-Office-Was-Built-for-the-Wrong-Work--Rebecca-Swanner--What-the-F-is-Happening-to-the-Office-e3jcb65
Audio file: https://anchor.fm/s/10c4b433c/podcast/play/119990917/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2026-4-14%2F424153875-44100-2-5553656ef0a65.mp3
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Duration seconds: 3259

## Resource

What if the biggest threat to your organization's performance isn't your people — it's the space you put them in? Rebecca Swanner is workplace sector leader at HED, and she and her team have been not just asking how AI is changing how we work, but what that actually means for the physical spaces we design.Here's what their national research study found. Spaces for collaboration? Actually working fine. But focus and restoration are the two things that matter most as AI shifts humans toward higher-cognitive-load work and are critically underserved. Only 15% of respondents felt restoration was properly supported in their workplace. And there's a massive disconnect between what leadership thinks the office is for (presence and visibility) and what employees actually need (the ability to think deeply and recover from it). That gap is costing organizations more than they realize in burnout, resistance, and lost innovation.Rebecca walks us through the research, the design implications, the emerging role of responsive and wearable tech in the workplace, and what she calls the potential "death of the open office." She also makes the case that the most important metric shift leaders can make right now is moving from occupancy to outcomes, and what that looks like in practice when you're designing space from scratch or recalibrating what you have.If you're involved in shaping where and how people work, whether you're in architecture, workplace strategy, commercial real estate, facilities, furniture, or organizational leadership this is the conversation you need to be having right now. Subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next.

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## Transcript

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