The future of work is on everyone’s agenda. This event brings thought leaders together to share cutting edge ideas on the future, from both a people and technology perspective.
It will allow an understanding of the key drivers of change and enablers of innovation that will shape how, where and when work takes place. Our conference programme will explore future technologies, cutting edge award-winning workplaces and people, change and engagement.
For decades, workplace comfort has been designed around averages: fixed temperatures, static standards and outdated assumptions.
But today’s workplaces are diverse, dynamic and anything but average. This keynote challenges the idea of 'one size fits all' comfort and shows why many offices feel uncomfortable, inefficient, and energy wasteful as a result. It makes the case for a dynamic, personal approach to indoor climate; one that improves wellbeing, comfort and energy performance by designing for real people, not averages.
Blurred landlord–tenant responsibilities are becoming a major pressure point in commercial real estate. As vacancy rates climb and the gap between prime and non prime assets expands, workplace experience is emerging as a decisive factor in asset performance. This panel will explore whether experience is a landlord duty, tenant obligation or shared infrastructure, how adaptability should be valued and whether hybrid work will accelerate multi use strategies. With demand shifting toward shorter commitments, the discussion also explores how coworking, flex solutions and hybrid leases can reinforce long term tenancies, stabilise portfolios and broaden appeal. Expect an honest debate on where value is created, who captures it and how experience can redefine portfolios under pressure.
Haskoning’s new Delft office demonstrates how a national monument can be reimagined as a contemporary workplace that supports culture, collaboration and organisational identity. The transformation of the former Mining Faculty introduces two glass‑covered atriums, 750 workspaces and a future‑ready, fully gas‑free environment, balancing heritage with modern functionality. By combining adaptive reuse with thoughtful spatial design and circular material strategies, the project offers insights for leaders shaping workplaces that must attract talent, strengthen community and remain resilient to long‑term change.
Boosting healthy buildings and the circular economy through government buildings means using public assets as a testing ground, market driver and standard‑setter. Governments uniquely commission, own and regulate buildings at scale. In a 30‑minute high‑speed deep dive, we cover project initiation, tendering, design and construction, using Avenue Ceramique Maastricht as a case study. A radically circular, green strategy — maximum reuse, bio‑based additions and flexible structures — will transform 16,000 m² into a healthy, adaptive workplace by 2028.
Many organisations struggle with low office occupancy and uneven weekly patterns, yet hybrid work policies continue to be shaped mainly by C‑level, HR and workplace teams. The day‑to‑day reality, however, is determined by middle managers who coordinate presence, set expectations and navigate discomfort around accountability. This session explores why managers hesitate to steer team attendance, how this gap sustains the familiar “camel week”, and what organisational conditions are needed to support more effective, manager‑led hybrid practice. Moderator: Janet Dunning.
More information to be announced
Collaboration between academia, local government and business is recasting business parks and inner‑city redevelopment zones across the Rotterdam–Delft–The Hague region into mixed‑use innovation hubs where housing, public space, entrepreneurship, sport, culture and new work settings intersect. Drawing on examples from TU Delft, the Mechatronics Innovation Campus Schiedam, Leiden Bio Science Park and major corporate anchors including Unilever, Eneco, Maersk, Robeco and Nike, the session examines how mixed‑use development and adaptive reuse fortify regional innovation ecosystems and embed workplace strategy within an increasingly integrated urban fabric.
ING redesigned its meeting experience by uniting technology, space design and behavioural insights. This session examines a holistic hybrid meeting concept shaped through employee feedback, cross‑domain collaboration and data‑driven research. It highlights how challenges with room capacity, noise and shifting post‑pandemic work patterns led to a new workplace blueprint centred on collaboration, employee experience and effective hybrid interaction.
Drawing on insights from the State of the Workplace 2026 survey, this session explores a critical shift in workplace strategy. While hybrid working patterns have largely settled, employee engagement is declining and frustration with everyday workplace friction remains high. The data exposes a widening “performance gap” between the intent behind workplace investment and the experience employees actually have. This talk reframes the workplace not as background infrastructure, but as a strategic performance lever—and challenges leaders to rethink how space, services and technology either enable human performance or actively undermine it.
Workplace designers now have access to unprecedented volumes of information – live occupancy data from sensor systems, continuous user feedback and years of post occupancy insight. Yet much of this intelligence still has little impact on real design choices. This panel explores why data so often stalls at dashboards and reports and how architects, interior designers and workplace strategists can translate it into truly human centred outcomes. From continuous feedback loops to AI supported benchmarking, speakers share practical approaches to turning insight into action and enabling spaces to evolve in dialogue with the people who use them. Moderator: Victoria Davalos
Rotterdam is the Netherlands’ contemporary architecture capital and one of Europe’s most experimental cities for commercial real estate and workplace innovation. With world renowned firms like OMA, MVRDV and KCAP shaping its skyline, Rem Koolhaas’ hometown has become a magnet for investment, mixed use regeneration and next-generation workplaces. Strong office rental growth, low vacancy in energy efficient buildings and some of Europe’s most attractive prime office yields make Rotterdam a living laboratory where architecture, urbanism and workplace strategy intersect in uniquely dynamic ways.
The Netherlands has one of Europe’s tightest labour markets, especially in engineering, tech and healthcare. To compete for scarce talent, Dutch organisations design workplaces and employee experiences with exceptional intentionality. The country’s triple helix model – deep collaboration between government, academia and business – has created highly connected innovation hubs around technical universities such as those around TU Delft, Brainport Eindhoven and Leiden Bio Science Park, that blend research, education, startups, industry, maker spaces and hybrid workplaces. The hubs are magnets for workplace innovation, new headquarters, R&D centres and international investment.
Dutch work culture has stabilised around a mature hybrid model where presence is driven by purpose rather than policy. This shift is reshaping workplace design; fewer desks, more project rooms, maker spaces and social zones. With burnout rising, organisations are prioritising human sustainability through movement, daylight, acoustics and biophilia. At the same time, AI is transforming both work and the workplace, from smart building systems to new ways of supporting hybrid teams. Dutch research leaders such as TNO and TU Delft are advancing human–AI collaboration as CRE, FM, HR and IT converge into unified workplace teams.
