sixball

It’s possible than living in the vicinity of some of London’s architectural landmarks, the London Eye, the Gherkin, City Hall, the dome of St Paul’s. Buildings are definitely getting more curvaceous (I’m ignoring the Shard). This, combined with my own extensive experience of inhabiting confined space has led me to be convinced of the inevitability of round rooms – or circular spaces.

Here’s my reasoning.

A big problem with optimising small is fitting everything in and it only takes a little reflection to track the root of the issue literally into the corner. A corner stops you putting the desk alongside the bookcase and, for the sake of a couple of inches, you are forced to waste a couple of feet. This is why kitchens often wind up as elongated galleys: they postpone the dreaded right-angle. The shorter the walls relative to the furniture the stricter the constraints and the greater the resultant waste.

Not only that, but corners are easily blocked, difficult to reach and generally gather crap. This is why I look forward to a glorious future where corners have been aptly banished to the corner themselves and rooms with only one wall become the norm.

Of course, there are minor considerations to be resolved first. Not least among these is the question of curvature. A fixed range is implied.

For the straightforward office cubicle, one metre radius may be the new A4. Office chairs could comfortably give you 300 degrees of nearly 2²m of reachable desk area. Arranging these cubicles for easy access has interesting creative possibilities which you might have fun sketch out yourself.