What does digital transformation mean for workplace design? Our Mary Young tackled the question for Work Design magazine and found the old maxim holds true: “Form follows function.”

Traditional office buildings were designed to serve a world of clear hierarchies, discrete departments, and well-guarded external boundaries. Their form actively functioned to centralize resources and control information flows. By contrast, today’s digital economy calls for removing walls and flattening structures—its mantra is agility, fluidity, connectivity. To realize these values operationally, companies are rebuilding their workplaces from the ground up around teamwork, innovation, customer engagement, and an openness to external talent, partners, networks, and communities.