EPISODE · Jun 2, 2026 · 47 MIN
Your Office Is Obsolete Before You Move In — Here's How to Fix It | Celeste Tell
from What The F* is Happening to The Office? · host Work Design
Are we designing offices that are already obsolete before anyone moves in? Workplace strategist and circular economy advocate Celeste Tell joins Bob Fox to challenge one of workplace design's most embedded assumptions — and make the case for a fundamentally different approach.Celeste Tell, co-founder of Epicycled, argues that in an era of constant organizational change, designing a workplace for a fixed outcome is designing for failure. Instead, she makes the case for treating the workplace like a kit of parts — think original Lego, not the themed sets — that can be reconfigured again and again without tearing everything out and starting over.In this episode of What the F* is Happening to the Office?, Bob and Celeste dig into why architects and contractors walk away on day one while owners are left holding a space that no longer fits, why landfill economics are the real obstacle to circularity in workplace design, how the auto industry mastered producer responsibility while office design hasn't, and what it would actually look like to design a workplace for a 50-year lease.If you work in corporate real estate, architecture, workplace strategy, or facilities — and you've watched a perfectly good space get scraped because things changed, or it was custom for a specific organization. — this conversation is for you.Like, subscribe, and share with anyone working to build better work environments.Download our State of the Workplace Report → https://workdesign.beehiiv.com/industry-report
What this episode covers
Are we designing offices that are already obsolete before anyone moves in? Workplace strategist and circular economy advocate Celeste Tell joins Bob Fox to challenge one of workplace design's most embedded assumptions — and make the case for a fundamentally different approach.Celeste Tell, co-founder of Epicycled, argues that in an era of constant organizational change, designing a workplace for a fixed outcome is designing for failure. Instead, she makes the case for treating the workplace like a kit of parts — think original Lego, not the themed sets — that can be reconfigured again and again without tearing everything out and starting over.In this episode of What the F* is Happening to the Office?, Bob and Celeste dig into why architects and contractors walk away on day one while owners are left holding a space that no longer fits, why landfill economics are the real obstacle to circularity in workplace design, how the auto industry mastered producer responsibility while office design hasn't, and what it would actually look like to design a workplace for a 50-year lease.If you work in corporate real estate, architecture, workplace strategy, or facilities — and you've watched a perfectly good space get scraped because things changed, or it was custom for a specific organization. — this conversation is for you.Like, subscribe, and share with anyone working to build better work environments.Download our State of the Workplace Report → https://workdesign.beehiiv.com/industry-report
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Your Office Is Obsolete Before You Move In — Here's How to Fix It | Celeste Tell
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