This magazine is one of four print issues of Vitra’s e-magazine, which were published digitally in the summer of 2020. The magazines are the concept of Vitra CEO Nora Fehlbaum and contain suggestions for new ways of designing offices and domestic interiors in light of the health concerns brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. Claiming that the pandemic has ‘fundamentally altered the way we work’, each issue focuses on a different aspect of the changing workplace. Working between disciplines, Vitra leveraged their network of scientists and designers to help inform their design decisions based on empirical evidence from research in public and personal health. Collectively, all four issues contain valuable information on workplace design and serve as a bellwether to the lasting changes in work in a post-pandemic society. 

Issue 02, ‘A Safe Landing in a New Office Reality’ focuses on the office but uses Vitra’s own campus in Weil am Rhein as an example to discuss new ‘spatial solutions and security measures’ that allow the return of Vitra’s employees and visitors. The issue includes a study of a call centre in South Korea, concluding that the risk of infection is high at the workplace, however, preventative strategies such as those employed by Vitra can reduce the spread of disease. Stressing that not all interactions can be transferred online, Vitra’s plans are built around the necessity of in-person meetings, which they suggest as having a lower maximum capacity and be conducted outside if possible. Making the emotional case for the return to the workplace, Financial Times columnist Lucy Kellaway argues in an essay that the office gives work its meaning through interaction with others. The issue also includes an interview with Sevil Peach, of London-based studio SevilPeach Architecture + Design, who collaborated on the ‘Citizen Office’ on the Vitra Campus in Weil am Rhein, and in 2015 designed the ‘Studio Office’ at Vitra’s headquarters in Birsfelden. In the interview, Peach claims that ‘the office is here to remain, but possibly in a different format,’ underscoring the desire by Vitra to return to their workplace, albeit in an altered state.