Some people say that commuting to work is like migration, it is a robbery.
There was once a Weibo hot search called #Is it difficult to steal happiness from commuting.# For young people struggling in big cities, long sardine-style "migrations" are looped every day before and after work.
Photo/Visual China
Beijing Normal University launched a survey on the theme of "Allocation of Working Hours for Chinese Workers in the Context of Economic Transformation" and released the "Report on the Development of China's Labor Market", which showed that people in large cities consume a lot of time on commuting.
Among them, Beijing> Shanghai> Shenzhen> Guangzhou, even the Guangzhou employees at the end of the line have more than 90 minutes of commuting time.
"It's not at work, it's on the way to work", which has become the common sentiment of office workers in big cities.
Photo: Pixabay
Some young people who are fed up with hellish commuting have chosen to rent a house near the company to save commuting time; and with the development of Internet technology, some even simply move their jobs back home, become SOHO, and live a "work-to-live" life.
I don't know if you have found that this kind of lifestyle with close work and housing and mixed functions has many similarities with the family compound under the unit relationship in the planned economy era of the 50s and 70s.
Just like the retro resurgence, the family compounds and their lifestyles that were once overwhelmed by the roaring wave of urbanization have returned to the public's vision with the increasing seriousness of the "big city disease", the emergence of traffic congestion, air pollution, and the rising cost of living (especially the cost of travel).
And put on a new vest, has become the popular buzzword of the moment - work-life integration, SOHO family.
Photo: Pixabay @StockSnap
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SOHO is not simply "retro"
It is also the choice of the era of job and housing change
In the 50s and 70s of the last century, China implemented a planned economic system, and in order to solve the problem of housing a large number of workers, the state built a large number of shared housing units as collectives. At that time, most of the unit compounds were basically near the work unit, and some were even inside the unit, objectively achieving the effect of combining work and housing, and commuting was only a few minutes on foot.
The unit compound is a by-product of the planned economy and the most representative symbol of that era.
(Whether it is the older generation of residents or the children who have grown up in the family compound, many people will more or less miss the closely related way of life, everyone knows each other, is lively and happy, and full of humanity.) ）
Photo: Pexels @zhang kaiyv
In the 1980s and 1990s, China ushered in reform and opening up, changing from a planned economy to a market economy, and the land system and housing system also underwent changes, thus gradually changing the balance of work and housing based on units. Separation of work and housing began to appear, and commuting distance gradually increased.
Since 1998, with the advancement of urbanization and industrialization, after the housing reform in 1998, the unit compound has completely come to an end because it is no longer adapted to the development of society.
At the same time, market forces have gradually become the determining factor in the selection of housing and enterprise locations, and the construction of public housing has been continuously built to the edge of the city far from the employment center, resulting in an increasing commuting distance and even the emergence of ultra-long commuting.
Photo/Pexels @mentatdgt
In recent years, the problems caused by the imbalance between work and housing have become increasingly serious. In this regard, in order to solve the problem of people's commuting difficulties, many cities have begun to attach great importance to the problem of "work-life balance" in the overall urban development plan and promote improvement.
At the same time, with the wide application of the Internet, modern young people have broken the previous thinking concepts and lifestyles, and gradually developed into a new generation of SOHO, realizing the integration of work and housing.
The sudden outbreak of the epidemic last year forced many people to work from home for a long time, which also caused people to think about more functions of the home, which further catalyzed the vigorous development of the integrated lifestyle of work and housing.
Photo by Pexels @Tima Miroshnichenko
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SOHO lifestyle
Why it is sought after by young people
Some people say that by joining the "SOHO family", what you get rid of is the shackles, and what you get is freedom.
The so-called "SOHO" or Small Office Home Office, which means working from home, represents a free, flexible and new way of working.
In the past, the SOHO people mostly referred to those who specialized in freelancers: freelance writers, designers, artists, etc.
In the past two years, with the widespread use of the Internet in various fields, SOHO has become a way of working that more and more people, especially young people, are willing to try, and its connotation and form are also changing.
As a fashionable, relaxed and free lifestyle and attitude to life, SOHO can focus on one job or work part-time.
The biggest advantage over traditional office workers is, of course, freedom. No longer have to endure the "Long March" style commute, away from traffic congestion, save a lot of commuting time on the road, working hours can be freely deployed, from then on get rid of 996, live life as you want.
Photo: Pexels @EKATERINA BOLOVTSOVA
Second, physical freedom can also bring about spiritual liberation, and can burst out many of the essence of thoughts that have been imprisoned in the office. Independence and creativity are also stronger, making working from home even more efficient than traditional centralized offices.
At the same time, you can also improve family relations and have more time to arrange your life and spend time with your family.
Pexels @Ketut Subiyanto
Of course, it is precisely because of SOHO's freedom that it is also extremely challenging. Difficulties such as uncertain income, irregular life, and high pressure to survive cannot be ignored.
But it is undeniable that the integration of work and housing and remote work has become a new trend. With the development of technology and the increase of freelancers, there will be more scenarios of working from home in the future.
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Create a SOHO home
It's not complicated
According to the 2018 Home White Paper, more than 81% of respondents said they also need to work from home. Nowadays, whether you are an overtime dog or a freelancer, more and more modern people inevitably work from home, so the home has another office space role.
This highly integrated work-life lifestyle also puts forward higher requirements for home improvement design.
So, how can soho type residential design meet office needs and business conveniences while ensuring the comfort of living life? Let's take a look at the excellent work of those practitioners of the integration of work and housing
Photo/ Design by Wu Yu
01
Duplex "work-to-live" space
Create a French style of living home
Nowadays, many SOHO apartments adopt duplex, loft design, rest upstairs, work downstairs, and do not interfere with each other - not only to meet the needs of home office owners, but also to bring a comfortable living experience for heads of households.
For example, in the following case, the female house owner is engaged in the incubation of creative industries, and in terms of the use of the house, she hopes that in addition to daily residence, she can also take into account the expansion of the project team meeting.
The first floor adopts an integrated LDK design to create an open layout. From the living room to the bar to the dining room, the individual spaces are interconnected.
Among them, the kitchen space is designed as a Chinese and Western kitchen, which is open and independent of each other. The west kitchen area is installed with top cabinets and reserved a long strip of operating tables to facilitate the preparation of tea and snacks for meetings and team buildings.
The restaurant has long oval tables and can accommodate eight to ten people to dine together. In non-dining moments, it can also be used as a light office, organize team development, or conduct small training, making the function more flexible.
The living room breaks the traditional layout, and surrounds a meeting area conducive to interactive communication through light gray sofas, rattan single chairs, round coffee tables, and solid color carpets, which is flexible and comfortable.
Behind the sofa is a wide floor-to-ceiling window, which can be viewed from the window when you are tired of work, and the view is excellent.
A rotating TV is added next to the bar in the living room, and both spaces in the guest and dining room can be used to facilitate daily meeting projection.
At the same time, the living room also has an invisible curtain storage slot, so that the owner can not only put down the curtain to watch his favorite movies and enjoy the ultimate visual enjoyment brought by the giant screen; it can also be used as a display during team training.
The clever superposition of functions is more in line with the consistent lifestyle of the homeowner.
Above the spiral staircase is a private space reserved for the female owner. Including a study, master bedroom, bathroom, cloakroom and leisure balcony, multiple spaces are connected by migratory lines, independent and interconnected.
Back here, you can unload the distractions of the outside world and relax completely.
02
Life on the left, work on the right
Salt SOHO space for high-sweet couples
Of course, it is not only duplexes and lofts that can create a SOHO home that does not make mistakes in work and life, as long as the flat floor and small apartment are properly designed, the same can be done.
The owner of the following case is a couple of post-90s couples, the hostess loves baking, the host loves photography, they develop their respective interests into their own careers, open an entrepreneurial model, and transform the home into an enviable salt-based living space.
Photo/Designer Wang Wei
The home of work and living requires flexibility and efficiency, and the designer uses tangible space planning to naturally differentiate the dynamic and static areas, enlarge the area of the common area, so that the two owners can switch freely between leisure interaction and plan discussion.
The original enclosed kitchen was transformed into an open kitchen, and the length of the countertop was increased by nearly 1.2 meters compared with the original structure, which greatly facilitated the daily baking work of the hostess.
The disappearance of the wall allows the kitchen to naturally integrate into the guest dining room, achieving the purpose of opening up the space, visually layering, and promoting communication between people.
For study rooms that are indispensable for working from home, a partition-free design is adopted.
A fluid desk divides the moving line in two – the state of living on the left and working on the right follows.
On the left is the living room, where the hostess can pick up the cat and watch the drama at any time. The desktop in the living room part also acts as a few side of the sofa.
On the right is the male owner's usual workbench for retouching and graphic design creativity, which is also his entertainment area.
The wooden partitions that go with the trend weaken the visual rigidity brought by the wall, so that the space remains uniform and also plays a role in storage.
In addition to the above two cases, we can see that in many home furnishings that integrate work and residence, most of them try to use a "de-living room" design concept to integrate the functions of the living room and the study room, and the living room does not have a conventional combination of TV cabinet and large sofa, but is replaced by a long workbench or large bookshelf.
Such a design can release more space in the living room to the upcoming scenes in the future, such as: home office, parents and children' classmates, self-improvement learning and thinking, and so on.
Figure/Design for Mu
The long-strip desk with some light partitions can make the office environment not only ensure the simplicity and efficiency required for work, but also the warm atmosphere of home.
At the same time, with the cave board, bookshelf and modular office components, it can be very flexible and convenient to meet the placement and storage requirements of different work tools.
Although SOHO is not yet a common phenomenon, with the popularization of the Internet and the development of communication technology, the free, romantic, unfettered, and away from traffic congestion work methods of the SOHO family have attracted more and more young and middle-aged people to join the ranks, becoming a hot trend and new trend, and being widely accepted may only be a matter of concept and time.
Even though there is no capital and courage to be a SOHO, in today's era, no matter what profession you are engaged in, working at any time has become an inevitable way of life.
Preset the space for the home in advance, so that the living room, dining room, study, etc. are not strictly defined, to create a home where the space functions are staggered and the work and life are intertwined, which is a trend choice in the current young people's home design.
When looking back at the past, looking back at the past compound, looking back at the happy life of going out of the house is the workplace, I can't help but find that from the era of the collective dormitory compound where the workplace and residence are close, to the separation of work and housing, and even the current dilemma of the imbalance between work and housing, to the future trend of the integrated design of work and housing and the rise of the SOHO family, what has changed is the living mode and state, and what has not changed is people's pursuit and yearning for a better life.
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