The world around us is quickly evolving and is forcing all of us to re-think the role of the workspace and what even is the workspace around us today. And that, of course, influences how we learn. As an architecture and design firm that partners with companies in redesigning their workspaces, this has been of particular interest to us, and we launched a year-long intensive internal research study on this topic. Through our research, we have identified and codified natural modes of learning, and this dialogue will focus in particular on the mode of ‘chance-based’ (unstructured, unplanned) learning, how we help enable this as a centralized learning function, and the influence of physical space.

Our initial research findings identified there are four natural modes of work, ‘Focus’, ‘Collaborate’, ‘Socialize’, and ‘Learn.’ Through continued research, we discovered that Learning is not a fourth work mode, but instead embeds into the work we do every day. And so if learning is embedded in all work modes, how might we make every moment learn-full?