Savo Sitdowns: The future of the office with Amy Frearson

The London-based journalist and editor has honed her craft at titles including ELLE decoration and The Times, all while holding down her role as editor-at-large at online architecture, interiors and design magazine Dezeen. Also a published author, Amy’s book All Together Now: The Co-living and Co-working Revolution, explores the shift in how we live and work, and the blurring of lines between home, office, and school. And if all that isn’t enough, she’s also the co-founder of Curated Maps, a digital platform offering guides to design weeks around the world.

Having moderated discussions at events like Savo’s Studies in Seating exhibition during Stockholm Design Week 2025, Amy is uniquely positioned to discuss the future of how we live and work. Together with Craig, she explores how workplace design, seating, and the next generation of workers will shape office spaces in the years to come.

C.H. Thanks for having us here today, Amy. It’s a fantastic space – is this your main workplace?

A.F. When I’m in London, I’m usually here nine to six. Sometimes I work from home or remotely, depending on the project, but this is my main base. I like working in an office. Even though I work for myself, I miss the feeling of being part of a team.

C.H. During COVID, homeworking became the norm, but now things seem to be shifting again. Why do you prefer working in an office?

A.F. I worked in-house at Dezeen for eight years before going freelance in 2019. Since then I’ve learned that, even though I work for myself, I don’t enjoy working by myself.

I’ve shared studios with friends and spent time in a design office in Copenhagen, and I loved being around a team while still doing my own thing. When I came back to London, I reached out to Haptic and joined their office. It’s exactly the balance I was looking for; it creates opportunities to share expertise while still getting on with our own work.

C.H. Beyond culture, what do you think makes a workspace truly work?

A.F. I think small details can make a big difference. I love this space – like many London offices, especially in the creative industries, it’s an ex-industrial warehouse with huge windows letting in incredible natural light, a view of the canal, and plenty of plants, which can really have an impact on the way you feel when you’re spending so many hours of the day here. The layout is quite old school, with banks of desks and meeting rooms. It might feel a bit old-fashioned now, but it really suits me. When I need different ways of working, I’ll do that at home, but in the office, I come to sit at my desk and have meetings.

C.H. This space really feels like a hidden gem. How do you see workspace design evolving more broadly?

A.F. It feels like it’s constantly yo-yoing. Sometimes we want the office to be more fun or more serious, sometimes more traditional and other times more flexible.

People across the industry see it very differently. For example, someone at WeWork told me people don’t want banks of desks anymore, but that was specific to their clients, often corporates downsizing headquarters and looking for flexible spaces to meet. On the other hand, smaller co-working spaces tend to focus on cultivating community, often for freelancers or individuals who actually want an environment that feels professional where they can crack on without distractions.

So, I always say: it depends who you ask. There are so many different needs and factors shaping it.

C.H. Many universities and student spaces are furnished with everything from sofas to project tables, so moving into a traditional office can feel alien for younger generations. Do you think companies consider this when designing workplaces?

A.F. I think that’s definitely a factor. The older and younger generations often want quite different things. Overall, I think there’s a clear mix needed between more active forms of sitting and more traditional setups.

C.H. At Savo, we’ve put a lot of focus on active seating. From your perspective, how important is the office chair, and do you think it’s often overlooked?

A.F. With home furniture, the function is easier to achieve, so the aesthetic often becomes the deal breaker. In the workplace, function takes priority. The chair has to work well, and there’s a lot it has to do to work well. So, aesthetics have naturally taken a back seat.

Chair technology has come a long way in the past decade, and younger generations coming into the workplace expect their office furniture to look good as well as work well.

C.H. That’s part of what we explore in our Studies in Seating research. Many users don’t use the full functionality of a chair, so it needs to be intuitive. But design often gets little attention. During COVID, when people needed chairs at home, design suddenly mattered more.

Sustainability is also increasingly influencing material choices. Do you think people are caring more about the design of office chairs?

A.F. It’s really interesting, actually. I recently wrote about a hospitality project where the designers committed to reused and natural materials, sourcing almost everything secondhand. The only exception was the chairs. Reclaimed wood or reused textiles can work well, but the chair is one thing people aren’t willing to compromise on. We need the seats to function. And that creates an opportunity: to design seating that’s both comfortable and beautiful.

C.H. Much of what we’ve discussed today is also in your book All Together Now. It explores co-working and co-living, and how some products blend the two. What was the inspiration behind the book?

A.F. The book explores shifts in student housing and family communities with shared spaces, looking at these new real estate models through the lens of design. It asks: how do you design these spaces to perform well and address the challenges people fear when sharing spaces?

One model I found interesting is combining smaller private apartments with shared co-working spaces. This benefits building owners by using space efficiently, and residents by giving them social interaction and flexible work options.

My biggest learning was that we need more models of how you can live and work. There’s no one-size-fits-all when it comes to the future of the workplace. The future is about more variety and flexibility, allowing people to work and live in different ways and create combinations that work for them.

C.H. Trends in interiors point to flexible, adaptable spaces. The challenge for many organisations is how to effectively bring all those pieces together.

A.F. That’s the tricky part – flexibility on its own isn’t enough. You mentioned earlier how customers often don’t adjust chairs, even when they’re highly adaptable. The same thing happens on a larger scale in offices. You can design different settings, offer a variety of seating and work environments, but people won’t necessarily use them unless they’re shown how. Most stick with what they know – it feels comfortable, or they’re too busy to think about changing how they work. So when we talk about the future office, it’s not just about creating possibilities, but designing in a way that encourages people to actually discover and use those new ways of working.

C.H. I think it comes back to human nature – we take the path of least resistance. And office chairs are no different. From a Savo perspective, one of our core principles is intuition. A chair has to be intuitive, especially when it’s not assigned to just one person. In co-working spaces or shared offices, the same chair might be used by several people in a day. The key is that it should adapt to the user, not the other way around. But that’s not always easy to achieve when there are so many demands on what the chair needs to do in terms of adjustability.

Speaking of which, do you have a favourite chair – one that really stood out to you in a particular office?

A.F. Funny enough, it wasn’t the chair I’d have called the most comfortable, but it was the one that made me sit well. At first, I wasn’t sure; it felt a bit awkward. But after a few days, I noticed my posture was much better. By the end of my time there, I was thinking, “How do I take one of these home with me?” It was a good reminder that what feels natural at first isn’t always what’s best for you.

C.H. Well said. Amy. Thank you for letting us come down here today. It’s been a nice follow on from the discussions we had during Stockholm Design Week.

A.F. Thank you so much for coming to visit me here. It’s been an absolute pleasure exploring the future of the office with you.