Past Informs Present for New Directions in Workplace Design

The Tenement Museum on New York’s Lower East Side is home to a moment frozen in time—an apartment building shuttered in the 1920s and rediscovered in 1988, which we later helped restore and transform into a vibrant cultural center. Beyond their historical significance, early 1900s-era tenements offer something remarkably relevant to the modern workplace: they were one of the earliest sites of hybrid work.

By day, despite poor living conditions, many immigrant families transformed their tightly packed tenements—in what was then the densest community on earth—into protofactories for the city’s nascent garment district. Beds slid aside. Sewing machines rolled in. Children improvised play space beneath cutting tables. Other residents operated saloons, preparing patrons’ meals in their own tiny living space. Every square inch flexed to meet a family’s evolving needs. But what truly powered these rooms wasn’t machinery—it was purpose.

The Tenement Museum’s exhibits include a parlor curated in its adaptation from living space to sewing workroom. Another tenement displays the kitchen that served both family and patrons of a street-level saloon. Left: Photograph by Ryan Lahiff, Tenement Museum Collection | Right: Photograph by Andrew Rugge/© Perkins Eastman

Immigrants arrived in New York in search of a better life after fleeing violence and persecution in their homelands. Their purpose wasn’t abstract. It was survival, progress, and belonging. It transformed cramped rooms into productive economic engines, and it transformed strangers into neighbors and collaborators.

Today, as we debate hybrid work and return-to-office policies, the tenements serve as a poignant reminder that people will give their all when their purpose is clear, shared, and meaningful. Then as now, they can best succeed when they inhabit flexible space that accommodates different needs at different times.

The “Why” That Holds Everything Together

Earlier this fall, I delivered a presentation with Tamar Moy, Senior Vice President and Northeast Region Lead for Workplace Strategy and Human Experience at Newmark, a global real estate advisory firm. During the annual CoreNet Global Summit of commercial real estate and workplace leaders, we reinforced a crucial distinction: mission is what we do; purpose is why we do it.

Mission can change, expand, or pivot with market shifts. Purpose is foundational. It shapes culture, attracts and retains talent, and fuels resilience. As Tamar and I have both learned through years of advising clients through strategic consulting and design, dissatisfaction with the workplace often correlates with a perception that culture is misaligned with purpose.

Employees—especially millennials and Gen Z—are voting with their feet. According to the workplace analytics firm Reworc, survey data from more than 100,000 respondents showed nearly half had left a job because it lacked clear goals. The data highlighted a desire for empathetic leadership, clarity of vision, and a workplace supportive of community and growth. Respondents want to see their leaders walk the walk. When leadership strategies align with the their firms’ objective, the Reworc data shows that engagement jumps 17-fold.

Designing for Purpose Means Designing for People

Perkins Eastman has designed powerful workplace environments that succeed because an organization’s purpose is given physical expression. Consider the DIY Café in a workspace we designed for Google. The space is punctuated with a woven-string light installation created by Megan Mosholder, whose work is shaped by extraordinary resilience following a life-altering accident. Her sculpture does more than brand the space—it signals who belongs, what is valued, and how creativity and community are cultivated. Intentionality can be present in the stories a workplace tells. It can be made visible in the details and craft of workplace design.

A light-infused string sculpture by Megan Mosholder demonstrates inclusion and understanding along with the serendipitous joy of creation in the DIY Café we designed for Google.
Photograph by Andrew Rugge/© Perkins Eastman

Another compelling illustration of the purpose-driven workplace can be found in our adaptive reuse project for Audible. Working with Spector Group, we helped the company transform a decommissioned cathedral in Newark, NJ, into the Audible Innovation Cathedral, dedicated to elevating the emotional power of the spoken word.

The Audible Innovation Cathedral inhabits the walls of a 1933 sanctuary, serving as a cornerstone of Newark’s growing innovation sector. Its organ pipes were preserved as a reminder of the beauty of sound.
Photographs © Ben Gancsos

The cathedral, once a source of solitude and silence as well as jubilation and celebration through music and song, now aligns the company’s purpose with place. Imagine if every organization embraced its mission with Audible’s level of clarity and conviction. Imagine what our workplaces—our communities—could become.

A Call to Action for Leaders

As many companies shift back to a four- and five-day office presence, leaders face a defining moment. Policies alone won’t rebuild community or performance. Space alone won’t create collaboration and employee engagement. Technology alone won’t spark innovation. Purpose must lead. So here is our call to action for clients, leaders, and ourselves: Make purpose visible. Make it felt. Make it unavoidable in culture, leadership, and workplace design. Reinforce it in the rituals that bond teams and in the ways we measure success.

Let’s learn from the immigrants who by necessity fashioned their tenements as hybrid live-work spaces more than a century ago. It’s time for workplace leaders to embrace purpose and flexibility as their guide. “How do we get people back to the office?” is no longer the question. “How do we make the office worth coming back to?” is the more actionable inquiry.