Insights

What if it were a matter of reversing our perspective? We live in a culture that constantly asks us to expand: to produce more, connect more, open up ever more. And yet, true wellbeing often stems from containment. Like in a Japanese Zen garden, where the boundary doesn’t close but directs the gaze, workspaces too can be conceived as limited yet generative ecosystems: not everything everywhere, but the right things where they are needed. Take a familiar thought: “How nice, now I can work from the sofa.” But do we really work well from that sofa? Total freedom only works as long as there is a context that holds it: a stretch of time, a posture, a threshold that distinguishes work from what is not. Context means constraint — some things I can do, others I can’t — and precisely for that reason I can focus, produce, and finally, breathe.

There’s beauty in designing with measure: deciding where to stop, how much space to leave, how much time to dedicate. It’s an ethical gesture before it is an aesthetic one. The limit becomes a sign of care, a threshold that protects us first and foremost from ourselves. 

And perhaps true luxury today is living within a considered perimeter, a space that doesn’t push us towards infinity, but invites us to find our own form of stillness. Let’s say it together: absolute freedom disorients; the right limit embraces.

So can we measure “feeling part of something”? To some extent, yes. Neuroscience talks about hormones such as oxytocin and dopamine; psychology speaks of motivation; marketing of engagement. But the truest indicator remains human: the spontaneous willingness to stay, to contribute, to take care. In Altis projects, this translates into spaces that encourage encounters, but also individual recognition. Shared areas, yes, but also personal niches: because collective belonging can only be built if everyone can find their own place, physically and emotionally. 

Belonging, in the end, is not a state. It is a verb in constant conjugation. A daily, quiet practice of caring for context. Because no open space, on its own, is enough to make us feel part of something, but a space designed around people can still make us say, with sincerity, “I feel good here.” 

If this reflection feels even a little like yours, write to us at [email protected] and let’s talk about it.

Like oil in an engine, the mind needs fluidity. Short, regular breaks; changes of posture; natural light; micro-movements: elements design can encourage and neuroscience confirms as essential to performance. Thinking does not regenerate under constant stress: it needs controlled friction and cooling points. Quiet areas, decompression routines and moments of recalibration, even a simple conscious breath, are all part of everyday maintenance.

In industry, the instinct is to replace what no longer works. With people, it’s smarter (and more ethical) to repair. Mental maintenance means recognising friction: a team that communicates poorly, a leadership that’s always “on”, an organisation that leaves no room for recovery, and intervening with precision, not punishment. It’s a shift in paradigm: from the cult of productivity to a culture of longevity.

Mental maintenance is an act of design care that Altis considers part of its method: Consult, Design, Deliver, useful especially when the construction site is still in our minds. To find out more, write to us at [email protected].

But not all windows are equal. We know it: some look out onto postcard-perfect skylines, others onto car parks or concrete walls. Yet the brain still plays its part. Any visual link with the outside, even a scraggy tree or a crow on the ledge, works as a reminder that the world goes on beyond the Excel file in front of us. It’s not just about the view, but about the possibility of an horizon, of perceiving the ‘beyond’ (we know, it may sound a bit New Age… but it makes perfect sense).

And when there are no windows, the eye invents them: a graffiti on the wall, a tropical screensaver, even a brightly lit corridor can become substitute horizons. Do they work? Only up to a point. Without natural light and a visual link to the outside, productivity drops and psychological wellbeing takes a hit. That’s why the issue is not just aesthetic, but design-related: rethinking workplaces also means deciding how and where to open windows.

The window, then, is much more than a view on the world: it is an interface between inside and outside, between focus and escape, between the everyday and the dream. It does not solve all the problems of contemporary work, true. But it remains a fundamental element of our daily wellbeing. For everything else, Hitchcock’s lesson still holds: the outside we observe is only a pretext, because the real scene always takes place inside us.

A building site isn’t just construction: it’s a choreography of materials, equipment and people. When logistics work, no one notices; when they don’t, everyone remembers. The backstage is an exercise in synchronicity: coordinating suppliers, managing access, keeping to schedules. A less tangible art, but a decisive one.

In theory they’re obstacles; in practice, they’re the norm. Delays, supply errors, structural surprises: every site knows them. The difference lies in preparation. Reading complexities early, anticipating criticalities and steering them through to handover is what separates a loosely organised approach from a solid one. We call it Consult – Design – Delivery, and it works because it sequences what usually stays disconnected: we read real requirements and the context’s rules before we draw, we design choices that simplify logistics and reduce snags, and in delivery we coordinate timing, players and surprises under a single direction.

If you’d like to see how Altis keeps the visible and the invisible sides of a project together, write to [email protected]

The problem is not just organisational, but cognitive. Every interruption breaks what we might call “attentional cycles”: a recent study from Toggl Blog suggests it takes on average 23 minutes to regain focus after a distraction. Multiply that by ten micro-distractions a day and it’s clear why phone booths have become the status symbol of the open office. The promise of collective energy easily turns into white noise, on a good day, or black noise, the kind that burns time and patience.

The point is not to choose between walls or open spaces. The issue is more subtle: designing environments that respect people’s different cognitive and emotional registers. Some need isolation to concentrate, others thrive on sharing to generate ideas, others on movement to find energy.

This is where our approach, Emotion Based Working, comes in: reading and designing spaces starting from the emotions they must sustain, not from the architectural dogma of the moment. There is no single model, but an ecosystem of possibilities. Closed rooms, hybrid areas, private corners, fluid zones: the real office is not a spatial dogma, but a set of conscious choices.

The open space was the symbol of an era, probably over. Working well today means creating environments that know when to open and when to close. Because in the end, true collaboration goes far beyond desk layouts: it is born from the design of a space that respects different ways of thinking and working.

And if this topic intrigues you, write to us at [email protected]. we promise a conversation more stimulating than an improvised brainstorming session at the coffee machine.

Studies on ABW show gains in physical activity and satisfaction, but also small dips in productivity. We move more, we feel better… but do we really work better? It’s the classic trade-off: the environment encourages interaction and movement, but without a design calibrated on people, it risks slowing processes instead of speeding them up.

For years ABW was adopted to cut workstations and optimise square metres. Today, however, ROI means looking beyond occupancy: mental health, engagement, the quality of interactions. In a hybrid world, the true value of space isn’t “how many desks you save,” but “how many connections you generate.”

This is why at Altis we talk about Emotion Based Working. Not just a catchy acronym, but a solid approach rooted in both data and people. At its core lies our Proprietary Research, which explores the relationship between space and behaviour, investigating how the physical environment influences emotional states and social dynamics inside the workplace. This way, every project is grounded in scientific evidence and a true understanding of how space can improve both wellbeing and productivity.

Because today’s work is shaped more by emotions than by mere activity. And it’s time to design places that reflect this reality, without nostalgia for old models, and with one key insight in mind: the next “upgrade” in work won’t be purely technological, but emotional.

The rest of the story? Write to us at [email protected]. We’ll tell you more.

A corridor that’s too narrow, a shadow that always falls in the wrong place, a material that ages faster than expected: annoyances? Perhaps. But also stimuli. Because friction isn’t just discomfort: it’s the resistance that pushes us to move, to change direction, to invent new solutions. Living is always a negotiation: if we want oak flooring, we know it will inevitably bear the marks of time. There’s no way around it: natural materials absorb the traces of daily life.

We live in the age of extreme personalisation, but space doesn’t always need to follow the same logic. The illusion of the “perfectly customised” risks reducing architecture to nothing more than an application of comfort. An office that doesn’t coddle us at every turn can instead become a training ground for resilience, a catalyst for confrontation, fertile ground for the kind of conflict that sparks new ideas.

This is not about giving up on function, but about opening up to creative tension. Accepting that space doesn’t fully belong to us,  that it’s something we must dialogue with, even clash with, means restoring its dignity and depth. Because it’s from confrontation that the most radical transformations are born.

The Consult phase is our exploration of the territory, where we gather data. Kick-off and Needs Analysis frame the challenges and opportunities. The Occupancy Study tells us who uses what, when, and how. With Rapid Prototyping, we test small-scale solutions to validate large-scale ones. And with the Building Analysis & Test-Fit we understand what is truly feasible, respecting every technical and regulatory constraint. It all converges into the Business Case, not the usual document, but a compass: it shows where it makes sense to invest, where to cut back, and how to distribute resources intelligently.

Design is not about making a space “beautiful”: it’s about nudging desired behaviours. Concept Design translates values and objectives into concrete guidelines. Design Development refines those choices, while Technical Design makes them ready for construction. Furniture isn’t scenery: it’s a functional tool that guides everyday practices. In parallel, Progressive Budgeting makes the cost evolution transparent: no final shocks, just progressively measured choices. Finally, the Contract clearly defines agreements: budget, timing, responsibilities. At this point the map is ready, detailed and operational: not a utopia, but a working document balancing aesthetics, function, and economic sustainability.

Deliver is the phase where the map guides the building of the new territory. Here it’s not enough to “build well”: continuous monitoring and the ability to manage complexity are essential. Permits, procurement, safety, construction, move logistics: every step is tracked with progressive cost control, allowing immediate intervention in case of deviations. And then there’s the often-overlooked issue: Change Management. Because spaces don’t change anything if people don’t inhabit them differently. Communicating, guiding, listening: these are design levers just as much as a partition wall or a height-adjustable desk.

The Altis method works because it breaks the traditional “silo” model: consultants handing things over to designers, who hand them over to procurement, who then pass them on to the general contractor. Each handover wastes time, information, and control. We unify everything in an end-to-end process, where the data gathered during analysis remains alive until final delivery. The result is measurable: timelines reduced by up to 25%, budgets respected, fewer risks. But above all, projects that make sense not only on paper, but in the daily life of the people who inhabit them.

The Altis method was created to guide complexity: listening, shaping, testing, delivering. One step at a time, with people at the centre. If you want to see our map applied to your own territory, write to us at: [email protected]

The waterfall house, the floor that “follows” the landscape, the vanishing walls. Wright didn’t build on nature, but with it. He designed the first truly modern home and let it breathe in the woods. Because the environment isn’t a backdrop. It’s a co-star. Ignore it, and sooner or later it’ll come knocking, even on your energy bill.